SSBU Tales
by ArcticSnow2019
Summary: A whole bunch of characters stuffed into one building, and a lot of them have beef with each other. Still, they have a business to run, and aside from not burning the house down every day, they need to keep the crowds engaged and the ratings up. After years of working the same strategy, though, the audience doesn't seem as entertained anymore...
1. Author's Note

Author's Note

This story is written with an aim to be more readable by those with less familiarity towards all the characters and the game itself. Therefore, you may come across some character descriptions that seem redundant for experienced fans, but I thought were necessary for newcomers to understand the characters better.

In light of there being some duplicates of characters in different forms, I've opted to merge all of those into individual characters. For example, Young Link and Toon Link will not be present in place of having Link represent all the different Links. Zelda and Sheik will not appear separately. Zero Suit Samus and Samus will not appear separately. This helps cut down on unnecessary confusion, and I felt it wouldn't hurt much given the gigantic roster of characters already present. However, I did keep the male and female versions of both Robin and Corrin, going with a twins system instead.

No DLC characters will be present to start, as that does not follow the way I've set up the system in the story. It's a vague reason but it might become clearer as you read.

Some sections may be edited in the future in order to patch up inconsistencies and plot holes I discover along the way.

Most importantly, I do not have experience with all of the different game series these characters come from. For example, I have played plenty of Star Fox, Legend of Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon games, but I have only some experience with Fire Emblem and have never played any of the Mother or Animal Crossing games. Therefore, the characters with the most focus at the beginning of this story will be from the games I have the most familiarity with, but I hope to expand that in the future by researching the other characters more.


	2. Formalities and Surprises

She smashed her fist on the mahogany desk.

"No! No way!" she shouted. The thought of it absolutely disgusted her. She jumped out of her chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor with a crash, and began pacing back and forth in front on the desk.

The man behind the desk moved to remove his sunglasses in exasperation. Halfway up his gloved hand paused, as if deliberating, then instead returned to the table.

"Look, I know this is a shock for you, but you're not the only one to have gone through this. There's no need to make it person-," but she cut him off.

"It _is_ personal!" she yelled. "You know what he's done to people! To me!"

The man sighed. He grabbed a white letter bearing a seal. The seal was that of a circle with a single horizontal and vertical line. The woman stopped pacing and stared menacingly at the letter, as if she had a grudge against the piece of paper. The man turned the letter over in his hands before tucking it into his jacket.

"Samus," he started, "I knew you wouldn't take pleasure in me inviting him, but you have to learn to settle things. You're not the only pair I've had to reconcile. However, I always have this conversation with each person this happens to. I think you'll agree that they all turned out fairly well at least."

Samus didn't look at all satisfied. Her narrow eyes were still fixed on the point where the letter had disappeared into the man's jacket. She then dropped her gaze to the floor.

"Why him," she muttered.

"Well," he said, relieved to see her temper had somewhat subsided. Samus had a habit of wrecking things when words failed her, a habit that multiplied in frequency when her roommates were around. He had packed away some of his more prized possessions before bringing her in because of this.

"I thought you might be somewhat happy to hear that he can't hurt anyone here, or at least won't be able to without someone stopping him. I can't imagine he'll decline the invitation, so he won't be causing any more havoc where you're from either."

Samus kicked the chair back off the ground and sat back in it. She refused to look back at the man. Instead, she looked to the window. It was a brilliant summer day. The grounds outside the mansion were bright green with a rather wild arrangement of gardens. She saw a couple of figures doing loops in the sky above.

The man, meanwhile, hadn't lifted his gaze off Samus.

"You think I'm insulting you by doing this?" he asked rather pointedly.

Samus shuffled slightly in her seat, but still didn't look from the window. Yes, she thought it was insulting, but she wasn't about to tell the man that she felt that way. It was a childish assumption, for he had never done anything with the intention of causing any of them unnecessary grief.

"My hope," he said, "is that perhaps this experience might help him grow and understand things a bit more. You know what he's like out there. He's alone. Here he'll be able to meet several people who have been there before."

Samus finally looked back at the man. There was still a lot of stubbornness in her expression, but this was natural. The man knew the important thing was that she might give the person in question a chance when they showed up.

Rather than, of course, attempting to obliterate him with a laser cannon upon his arrival.

"I'm not forgiving him," she said.

"And I wouldn't expect you to," he replied. "And I don't think he'll expect you to either. He might not even want it, but at least you have a chance to settle things. For all you know it could save people back where you're from."

Samus looked back to the window. "May I leave?" she asked.

"Of course."

Samus got up from the chair, far more gracefully this time, and exited through the door, her blond hair flashing through the frame before it closed shut.

The man relaxed into his chair. Thankfully, he thought, that went better than he had thought it would. These kinds of meetings always seemed to result in disaster. He remembered one incident some time ago where someone shot the invitation with a blaster and he had to remake it, hence why he put this one into his jacket when Samus got fired up.

"Isabelle!" he called. There was a scraping of a chair and scuttling of feet just outside the door. It flew open and a small figure stood in the frame.

"Yes, sir?" she asked.

"I need to go deliver these invitations. Meanwhile, we're going to need to renovate the mansion for our new guests," he told her, opening a drawer where several more letters identical to the one in his jacket resided. He picked them up and turned to Isabelle.

"Adding on, are we?" she smiled. "Shall I draw up some new plans?"

"Oh yes," said the man, smiling back. "But not just suites. We'll need to add two more floors to the place to accommodate everyone."

Isabelle's eyes widened and her mouth dropped a little in shock.

"Two…whole floors, sir?" she repeated.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, smiling more broadly. "Two whole floors will be needed, and we're moving back to 4 person suites again."

Isabelle jumped in place. "Well I must get right on that then! See you when you return, sir!" She scuttled back out of sight.

Today, thought the man, was turning out to be a great day. He got to deliver his invitations, in person nonetheless, his meeting with Samus didn't result in half his office being shot with lasers, and it was a beautiful day.

He adjusted his glasses, grabbed his walking cane next to the door, and set out into the hall.

A gloved, fur hand smacked down on the table, a couple of bank notes underneath it.

"Seven hundred says he'll kick one of those sword wielding heroes out."

A man with light, wavy hair and a blue tunic sitting opposite of the round table laughed. "I'm not sure whether I should be offended by that. I call. There's no way he's kicking out one of those guys. They're too popular with the crowds."

The man, or at least someone who had the figure of a man despite looking more like a fox, slouched in his chair and crossed his arms. The notes remained on the table.

They were sitting in a red carpeted room lit brightly by a chandelier which was hanging above the table. There were some handsome couches, a huge whiteboard, and a small handful of people.

"C'mon," he said, gesturing with one arm, the other still folded. "there're six of them. Guarantee one of them will go."

"Nah. They'll add more of them before they start kicking them out. Have any of them actually been kicked out after getting in?"

"Roy."

The man in the tunic paused. "Okay, I'll give you that, but he still came back last time."

"At the end."

"Who-a do you think will go then, Fox?" said another man also at the table with a thick Italian accent. "You are-a not getting rid of Marth, that's for sure. Even-a Ike is going to stay. So, who?"

Fox mulled over his thoughts for a second. "Either Lucina or Robin. I don't think they have the clout to hang around too long."

The blue tunic man scoffed.

"Well throw down your money if you're so sure, Link!" Fox exclaimed.

"Fine," Link replied, tossing out a pile of his own notes onto Fox's pile.

Fox smirked, then called out to an animal sitting next to the large whiteboard on the wall. The board had a table on it with various names and amounts of money along with bets written next to them. A few of them were:

Mario DK 150: Bayonetta - back

Link Samus 500: Palutena - back

Kirby Yoshi 400: Little Mac - kicked out

"Put me and Link down for seven hundred each that one of those Emblem people get kicked out!"

What looked like a large yellow rat with a lightning bolt shaped tail, a more likable face, and red pouches on its checks bounded up a ladder leaning against the board and began scribbling on it with a marker it held in its mouth.

Fox Link 700: An Emblem Member - kicked out

"This includes Roy and Corrin by the way, Pikachu," said Fox, pointing at Link with a smug look. The yellow rat at the top of the ladder nodded, marker still in its mouth.

Link rolled his eyes. "Fine."

"Does-a anyone know where Samus is?" asked the man with the accent. There were eight members of this group, but only five of them were there. Kirby and Yoshi were on their way down, but the hunter hadn't arrived.

"Last I saw her, Mario, she was saying somethin' bout meeting with Hand," said the fifth member of the room, a great ape who was sprawled out on the floor going through a box of bananas.

"Hand?" said Fox, sitting back up. "I thought he's supposed to be out right now delivering invitations."

"Did she say what it was for, DK?" asked Link.

DK gave Mario a look. "Could be the same thing."

Mario, Link, and Fox all made eye contact, but none of them said anything. They had all been invited to a meeting with Hand just before he went out to give invitations before. Mario's hadn't been that bad, but Link and Fox's were less than pleasant. DK had just come back from one, annoyed, yet somewhat indifferent.

_THUD_.

The three members of the table jumped. DK started choking on a banana, and Pikachu fell off its ladder.

"What the-?"

"Huh?"

"Oi!"

_Wheeeeze_.

"Pikaaa!"

The noise had come from one of the windows. It had been totally obscured by a great pink mass.

"Oh, for the love of…" started Fox. Link hopped up and ran to open the window. The pink mass came tumbling in and formed into the shape of a ball followed by a small green dinosaur.

"You know," said Mario, "we have-a door." The round pink ball turned around. It had huge eyes and two stubs on each side for arms. It remained silent. The dinosaur, who was about Link's height, got back onto its feet.

"Sorry about that, Mario. Kirby and I wanted to get down here quicker, so we tried to just float on down through the window. Kirby ran out of breath halfway and when I tried hovering into the window, we found out it was closed. But by then it was too late."

"Why don't we leave it open?" asked Link.

"No, it's way too hot outside today," said Fox.

Link sighed, "What're you talking about?"

"You put a ton of fur all over your body and tell me how hot it gets!" he snapped back.

"Guys. I think that-a we should start our meeting," said Mario. "Samus will be here soon enough."

The four standing at the window took their seats. DK rolled off the floor away from his pile of bananas and into his chair. Pikachu bounded up and across the table into its own chair. Seven of the eight chairs at the table were filled.

"So, the-a usual formalities," began Mario. "We know Mr. Hand wants to start a new competition. As members of the original eight we are-a obliged by him to help sort things out leading up to and just after the start of the competition. We'll need-a to assign roles. We'll need-a to run orientation for all the newcomers. Mr. Hand hinted to me there could be more than-a usual this time, so we'll have to split up the roles. Fox."

"Hm."

"I-a want you to show everyone their rooms. I'll-a get you a map of the place." He pulled a couple pieces of paper out of a folder on the table.

"Er, Mario, I don't need a map of the place," said Fox, slightly confused. He had been a member of the mansion for nearly twenty years.

"Hand told-a me the whole place is getting redone with new floors added."

"Really?" said Link.

"Hand must be tryin' to add a lot of people if he's adding space," said DK.

Link turned to Fox with a smirk. "Still think you're winning that bet?" he said.

"I'm not backing down," he replied. He took the papers from Mario and looked down at them. "Two whole new floors?" he shouted.

"Wait really?" said Yoshi, running over with the others except for Mario to look over Fox's shoulder at the plans.

"Look like we're gettin bigger suites as well!" said DK excitedly. "Four to a group now instead of three."

Link began to laugh. He looked at Fox, who groaned, and then looked at the betting board. "Oh, I am _so_ winning those bets!"

_BANG_.

The door to the room was thrown open. Samus walked in, slamming the door behind her. She looked murderous.

"Ha!" said Link, bounding over to Samus, completely oblivious to her current state. "Still confident about our bet? Looks like-_ow_!"

Samus, not sparing a look at him, had punched Link square in the face, knocking him over. She walked to her spot on the table and threw herself into it grumpily. Without a word to any of the members of the room staring at her, she put her arms on the table and buried her head in them.

Mario, Fox, and Link from the floor rubbing his eye exchanged looks again. Yoshi looked to ask Samus what was up, but Mario motioned to not bother her. Everyone returned to their seats.

"So, Fox," said Mario after everyone had sat down, as if their meeting had only been interrupted by a mere freight train, "I'll get-a you the list of roommates once Hand gives them to me. You know all-a the social workings around here well enough, you should be able to tell the newcomers what they need to know. Who's where, what to expect, what doors not to open unless-a you want a sword crashing down upon your head…"

Link snorted.

"…and so on," Mario finished. Fox nodded, collecting together all the floor plans.

"Next, we'll need food, and lots of it. People are going to be exhausted after their travel here and orientation. Kirby?"

The pink ball jumped up with a smile, nodding happily.

"Seemed-a like an easy choice. You've been-a pro with food for quite some time. Someone will also have to show them where they can store all-a their equipment and stuff. Swords, shields, blasters, chainsaw swords, or whatever-a fad comes up next."

"I can do that," said Link, raising his hand. "I've got plenty of stuff down there anyways I can show them."

"Alright, that-a works out great then. We'll need someone at-a the front handing newcomer's their plans for the day as they come in."

"Pika!"

"Sounds-a good. We'll have-a Pikachu doing that. Yoshi, could you go over-a some of the house rules with them? No need to-a be too specific. They'll-a learn most of them just living here."

"Sure!"

"DK."

DK smirked, "You'll be wantin me to do that fighting demonstration with ya, I bet?"

"Of-a course," chuckled Mario.

"Only if you're ready to get whooped again," DK replied, stretching out his massive body. Mario shook his head.

"And-a…Samus," he said a little tentatively.

"Hmph?" she groaned. Face still in her arms on the table.

"Could-a you help store all their equipment away once Link shows them where it's at?"

"Mmph." Mario took this to be a groan of agreement.

"Well I-a think that's all we needed to make sure we covered. Isabelle-a should have everything prepared by this evening. We should-a go collect that later so we have everything for tomorrow, especially you Fox. You have-a lot-a stuff you'll need to read through. Kirby, you should-a start working on that food. That's-a it."

All the members except Mario and Samus got up and headed for the door.

"Still want that bet, Foxie?" laughed Link, elbowing Fox.

"Shut-up or I'll put one of those bombs of yours in your cereal tomorrow," retorted Fox. Link's laugh faded away as the door closed.

Mario looked to Samus, who still hadn't moved.

"So," he started. Samus still refused to budge. Her hair had formed a dome over her, obscuring any view of her face. "I-a have a good guess as to what Mr. Hand wanted to talk to you about."

Samus groaned, pounding the table with her fist.

Mario laughed a little, "You are-a not the only one with a villain here, Samus." Samus finally looked up. Where others may have suspected tears, Mario wasn't at all surprised to see her characteristic stubborn face.

"He's inviting _him_," she hissed. "Why would he do that?"

She looked at Mario. He noticed a look of desperate confusion under the stubbornness. Tough as they could come, Mario had learned enough about the people he had spent so long with to know when they were at a loss.

"You-a know, I think you should perhaps talk to Link and Fox," he said. "They had their own experience with this."

"And you?" she asked.

"What-a bout me?"

"I know you had to have had this conversation once, when Hand was about to invite Bowser."

Mario laughed clearly this time. "Ah I always forget! Him and I used to be at each other all-a the time!"

"You still kinda are," Samus muttered, looking to the side.

Mario, still smiling, looked out the window Kirby had smashed into previously. "Yes, we still have-a our fun, running me through those contraptions and mazes of his. But where-a do you think we would be if we didn't have each other? Beating up-a all you people here?" He winked at her.

Samus slouched back in her chair. She ran her hands through her hair "I'd be better off without _him_."

"Perhaps, but don't-a go counting him out just yet. You might be surprised with-a what you find. Mr. Hand is good with picking out people with good potential. Anyways, no one is-a saying you have to be around him. He will probably have-a his own group."

With that, he patted her on the shoulder and said, "Let's-a go. Kirby will have-a eaten half the lunch room by the time we get there."


	3. Pokemon Battle

Hand climbed up the stairs into the main arena as an uproarious cheer reverberated inside.

"Ticket, sir?"

Hand fumbled inside his jacket, pulling forth a ticket, and handed it to the person in front of him.

"Section E, right down there, row twelve," he told him, tearing the ticket along the perforation.

"Thank you," Hand nodded curtly. He walked down the stairs towards the arena. It was a boxing ring, and surrounding it was a massive stadium of thousands upon thousands of people. Hand marched down to row twelve and excused himself as he waddled his way to his seat. Everyone around him was cheering as a boisterous man in a suit walking into the ring.

"Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen! Who's ready to see a battle?!" the man shouted, drawing out the last word to egg on his audience.

"Ooooover on my right for the first half of our fiery contest we have the winged beast with a heated attitude! He brings down fiery rage from the sky above…Chaarizaaard!"

An orange, dragon shaped animal dropped from the air just above the ring into a corner on the right with a heavy _thud_. It looked around at his admirers before giving a tremendous roar with fire spewing out of its mouth. The crowd went crazy. A boy just in front of Hand was jumping up and down furiously with a bag of popcorn, spilling its contents below.

"Dad! It's him!" he said, yanking the sleeve of the person on his right.

Charizard stomped around some before settling into the corner. Two people just outside the ring, a boy and a girl, walked up to the ropes and began talking and prepping their fighter. Hand made sure he got a good look at these two coaches.

"Aaaaand on my left," continued the man in the suit. "His passion is that of an erupting volcano! I give you…Inciineroaaaaarrrr!"

Hand was wondering if the boy in front of him would have any popcorn by the time the match started. He chuckled as he saw his father attempt to settle him down as to save the poor kernels flying everywhere.

Another creature, this one more humanoid but with lots of short fur and a huge, muscular torso, crawled into the ring. He stood up and spread his arms for the crowd, pumping them up as he strutted around the ring. Hand noticed some sharp claws on him as he paraded. His fir was mostly red and blank, save for his chest which was white and black.

Incineroar settled into his corner. Hand saw another coach show up next to him, a masked man, who began talking.

The man in the suit quickly hopped out of the ring. A large referee walked into the center of the ring.

"Alright fighters," he called. "Meet here with me in the middle." The two massive creatures stomped towards the middle together.

"Now," said the referee once they had arrived, "shake hands."

The two did so. Hand was sure the grip between the two of them could have shattered rock.

"No flying above ten meters, no fire outside of the ring, no claws or fire to the face, understood?" said the referee gruffly.

They nodded, then took a few steps back.

"Three! Two! One! Fight!"

The stage looked like it had caught fire, and what followed was a brilliant spectacle of fire and fighting. Charizard, mobile as could be with his ability to jump and fly around, frequently sought to get behind Incineroar, constantly berating him at range with fire attacks. Incineroar would occasionally land a powerful hit, drawing applause from the audience, which he would acknowledge before continuing his fight.

Hand thought happily to himself as Incineroar suddenly grabbed Charizard mid-flight and threw him to the ground. These were two good competitors to have. Charizard then whipped his tail around, thrashing Incineroar about the waist and into the ropes.

The crowd loved every second of it, cheering and gasping at every hit.

It was getting close to the end of time when Charizard attempted to dive bomb onto Incineroar. Incineroar dodged the attack and Charizard landed on the other side of the ring. Charizard turned and started to ready himself to spit flames at Incineroar again.

Hand saw Incineroar smile, more so than he had been the whole match at least, and launched himself at Charizard. He dodged the breath attack, not breaking pace, winded up his arm and drove it into Charizard's gut.

_WHAM!_

The hit connected perfectly. Charizard fell over backwards, struggling to get up.

The bell rang.

The crowd roared once more as Incineroar celebrated. Charizard slowly got back to its feet.

The referee beckoned both to the middle again and grabbed their arms. When he thrust Incineroar's hand into the air, the stadium erupted again. Incineroar strutted about the ring once more, dousing himself in the crowd's affection before turning to Charizard and offering a firm handshake once more.

Large sections of the crowd began heading for the bathrooms and concession stands for an intermission. Hand moved to the stairs with the group, but then had to move against the wave of people by marching down the stairs again towards the arena. He found the tunnel where the fighters and their coaches had disappeared into and walked up to the guard in front. He pulled out another ticket from his jacket.

"Backstage pass to see Incineroar and Charizard," he said. The guard nodded and stepped aside.

Within the halls were a great deal of strange creatures. Many of them were large like the two he had just seen in the ring, but others were rather short and stocky. He looked in each of the rooms as he walked down the hall in search of his query.

After a few minutes he happened upon where Incineroar was laying. A healer in a white dress was tending to his burns.

"Ah, Incineroar! And you must be his coach," he said to the man wearing a mask.

"Trainer," the man corrected him. "Professor Kukui. And you are?"

"Mr. Hand," he replied, shaking Kukui's hand.

"Hand eh? Well what're you here for?"

"Well, I actually have heard a great deal about your Incineroar here." Hand noticed the creature perk up a little at this. "In fact, I've decided to invite him to a special competition of mine." He looked inside for the jacket for the right invitation. Upon bringing it out he added, "I hope you'll join," and handed it to Kukui. Kukui took it and, before even opening, let out a yelp.

"But that's," he stammered, looking at the seal, "that's the seal of that one place!" He said, pointing at the seal on the invitation. He started at the seal, then at Hand. "Wait, that place is full of legends, how come I haven't heard of you?"

Hand laughed somewhat abashed. "Ah, I'm more of the executive. Keep the place running and, in this case, issue out invitations to fighters who we want to join us."

"This is incredible! Look!" Kukui said, opening the letter and showing it to Incineroar. Incineroar looked at it briefly, then jumped out of the hands of his healer and off the bench while giving with a triumphant roar.

"You _need_ to stay still!" snapped the nurse, shoving Incineroar back onto the bench.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' to you joining then, Incineroar?" said Hand happily. Incineroar gave a huge grin and nodded ferociously. "Excellent. I've already arranged for someone to pick you up just outside. You'll have to wait just a moment; I have more invites."

Hand left the room and looked for the Charizard he had spectated. A few more doors down he found it, along with other creatures in the room and two coaches. He knocked on the door.

"Hello!" called the girl, looking up to see who had arrived. "Who're you?" The boy, however, immediately recognized him.

"Hand!" he called. He jumped out of his chair and ran to shake his hand. "What're you doing here?"

"Hello Red," hand said to the boy, shaking his hand. "And you must be Leaf, correct?" he said to the girl, shaking her hand as well.

"Yes, sir!"

"It's been a while," said Red. "Is there a reason you're here?"

"Well, Red, I'm actually preparing to start another competition soon and…"

Red cut him off. "Oh, you must be here to pick up Charizard then!" He walked over to the great dragon, who was also being treated for minor burns. "He was great last time, weren't you!" Charizard gave a short roar of approval.

Hand smiled and said, "Actually," which was enough to freeze Red in his place and look straight at him. Hand gazed around the room as he pulled two invitations from his jacket. "I wanted to invite both you and Leaf here to fight with your…uh…" he fumbled, searching for the appropriate word to call all these strange creatures running around him.

"Pokémon!" Leaf cried.

"Ah, yes, those," Hand finished. Red ran over and snatched the invitations. Handing Leaf the one addressed to her, he tore his opened and began reading eagerly. Leaf waited a moment to admire the seal on the letter. Then she too tore hers open and began reading hungerly.

"You want Squirtle and Ivysaur with us as well right?" Red exclaimed.

"Certainly," Hand replied.

"Just like old times!"

Hand chuckled, "Yes, Red, just like old times."

Red jumped and fist pumped the air as Charizard let out a great roar just like Incineroar had done.

"Now, I've arranged for you to be picked up just outside. I've also invited Incineroar, so he should be out there as well with his, uh, trainer."

"Great," said Red. "Let's get going!"

They all bounded out of the room, leaving Hand behind. He looked at the remaining invitations in his jacket.

"Two down, fourteen to go," he said to himself. He had a long day ahead.

Outside the arena, Incineroar, Red, and Leaf were waiting along with Professor Kukui.

"Really impressed with what you kids have been able to do at your age," Kukui said. "Few have been able to train their Pokemon to stand up against my Incineroar like that."

"Thank you very much, sir," said Leaf. "Your Incineroar really is quite the fighter! I've never seen anything like him!" She looked up at the beast, who smiled and posed. The three of them laughed. "And he's so confident!"

"Yeah, I always tell him he's full himself, but he's got a heart of gold," said Kukui.

"Well," said Hand, coming up behind them, "I believe our transport has arrived."

A hovercraft descended in front of them and opened up to a luxurious interior.

"Man," said Kukui, "they weren't kidding when they said you guys had some money to throw around!"

"Well, by the looks of how your Incineroar fought he clearly only expects the best!" Hand laughed. Incineroar struck yet another pose.

_Hopefully he stops doing that_, thought Hand with a smirk, _or the other fighters will tear him up when he does_.

Red, Leaf, and the hulking Incineroar climbed into the vehicle, waving goodbye to the two standing on the dock. It closed its doors and shot off into the sky.

"Well," said Kukui, "I'm sure you're quite the busy man right now! Handing out invitations takes a lot of travelling I assume."

"Yes, but I thought you might be able to help me find my next fighter. It's an old friend of mine, quite small."

Kukui smirked, "Of course, but you gotta promise me. My Incineroar, he likes playing tough, but he's as gentle as a lamb when he's not in the ring. Make sure those other fighters don't bully him too much." He gave a wink.

"Oh, don't worry," said Hand, "I can already think of some people he's going to fit in great with."

Lunch at the mansion was always a chaotic affair. With it being the day before all the newcomers would be announced, there was a great deal of added anticipation. However, there was an even greater amount of fear. Along with the announcement of all the people who would be joining their group, there was also a solemn ceremony for those who would be leaving the mansion. Each event always saw a net increase in the number of members, but there had been some heavy losses in the past.

"You know," muttered Fox to Link, "I actually feel really bad betting against her now."

They were staring at a woman with dark blue hair who was sitting bolt upright in her chair, hands grasping her pants tightly as she repressed her shaking. Lucina, who Fox had put money on being removed from the guild tomorrow, was being consoled by two people on each side of her. One was her roommate, Zelda, who sported long hair the same color as Link's, and a guy Fox and Link knew to be related to her in some weird fashion, Marth, who had short hair the same color as Lucina's. Marth patted her hand and Zelda gave her a hug as a solitary tear defied her rigidity and slid down her face.

"Yeah," said Link, piling some meat onto his plate, "you know I'm all so confident that they'll stay, but it reminds you that none of us are really safe."

"You and I are, pal," said Fox, diving into his food. "Also, you're checking out Zelda again."

"Am not!" Link cried indignantly. Fox smirked.

"No, but it's funny how worked up you get over someone accusing you of it."

Link grumbled.

"You say that we're safe, but you wait," pointing his fork at Fox. "One of these days even one of us will get kicked out. There's nothing special preventing us from getting the same fate."

Fox, with a mouthful a food said, "Except, ya know, the riots that would take place outside Hand's office if that happened." He swallowed half his plate. "People would be breaking down his door and he'd have to, I dunno, flick them all out?"

The two of them laughed.

"Mario!" drawled a deep voice.

Mario looked up from his mushroom pizza, partly amused. "Yes, Bowser-a?"

A great mass that could be best described as a giant snapping turtle with huge spikes on its emerald green shell approached the table Mario was eating at. "How's it going, ya old plumber?"

"It's-a going well," he replied, eyeing Bowser dragging half the food within his reach onto his plate. "What are-a you doing." He stuffed half a pizza into his mouth.

"Aw c'mon," Bowser mumbled through his food. "I can't sit with you ever without making you suspicious?"

"Bowser, the-a only time you don't sit next to either Wario or a Ganondorf is when you are-a up to something," Mario replied flatly, returning to his food.

"Well," said Bowser, wiping his mouth politely and gesturing like he thought himself a businessman, "to be honest I'm not really _up_ to something. I just want to ask the questions everyone here is too scared to ask."

"Bowser, you-a know we don't-," Mario started, but Bowser shut him down.

"What's the new member list gonna look like?" he said. It wasn't very loud, but his voiced carried far enough to get to everyone's ears. The room lowered to a low buzz, with a few people exchanging quiet comments. All fifty plus members turned towards the pair.

DK answered from a table over. He was sitting with a smaller ape, Diddy Kong, and a boy with bright angel wings, Pit.

"You know we don't know anything 'bout a member list, Bowser," he rumbled.

"All of your fancy meetings you eight have and Hand doesn't even let you know who's coming tomorrow?"

"No," said Yoshi. He was sitting with Kirby, who nervously began stuffing more food into its mouth, and Pikachu, who watched Bowser curiously. "Why should we? If he's going to tell us, then he might as well tell all of us."

"We just help run the show," called Fox, "we don't know who the cast is going to be."

"Hmph," said Bowser as conversation in the room began to return. "Well, it was worth a shot at least." He got up, taking his monstrous pile of food with him, and left to go sit between Wario, a large man who wore the same type of uniform as Mario except yellow instead of red, and Ganondorf, who typically wore a set of black armor to go with his fiery red hair. Instead today he was wearing some track pants and a sweatshirt with a single purple word on it, "Power".

"Big-a day tomorrow, eh, brother?"

Mario's taller and slightly thinner brother, Luigi, nudged him with his elbow.

"It's-a stressful," mumbled Mario, packing more mushrooms onto his pizza.

At that moment there was a sob and Lucina could be seen sprinting out of the dining room, nearly tripping over her sweatpants and breaking a plate in the process. Zelda was running after her but stopped once she saw Marth following behind. She turned around on the spot, whipping her white dress sharply. Marth stopped in his tracks.

"No," Zelda told him sharply. "You stay here." She pointed back at the table. A small flame sparked from her hand.

"But-," Marth attempted to start, but the flame sparked again.

"Stay."

It was a command. Marth, hand in hair, slumped his shoulders and returned to his table alone. Another man with blue hair, although built bigger than Marth, came over and sat down, rubbing Marth's shoulder. Zelda dashed out of sight of the room.

Mario turned to Luigi. "It's-a hard to get excited this time. We have-a so many first timers we don't know who will stay." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I fear that-a we will lose more members than we will gain this time."

"I hope that-a you are wrong, brother."

A table over from where Lucina was, and where Marth now sat helpless, two sets of twins sat toying their food, not really eating a whole lot. All four of them had brilliantly white hair, and each set of twins had a boy and a girl. Each pair also had the misfortune of having the same name when they arrived at the mansion. Hand had simply told the other fighters to figure it out when they tried questioning. One of the pairs, both named Robin, were wearing black hoodies. The boy, dubbed Rob by the others to simplify things, had a pair of dark jeans on while the girl, Robin, let her oversized hoodie fall past her waist to nearly her knees. The other pair, both Corrin, had white and blue sweaters. The boy, Corinth, kept sawing at his steak with a knife but never eating it. The girl, Corrin, was ignoring the food entirely and was curled up in a ball staring at nothing. Her eyes were glassy. Rob and Robin were still very new and were some of the most at risk at getting cut, while Corinth and Corrin barely even made it as a part of some late additions by Hand. They all had made great friends during their time here but were now faced with the very real prospect of being removed from it all.

Fox surveyed the room. He hated it. Usually the place was wild with people shouting, food being scarfed down, happy faces, and even occasional fighting. Right now it was just depressing.

"I'm gonna go get those new floor plans from Isabelle," he told Link.

"Mmmhmm," replied Link, mouth full of food.

Fox jumped out of his chair and left the dining room. Once he got out into the hall he began thinking to himself.

"Hand probably knew who was staying and who was leaving weeks ago," he mumbled. "I bet he's got something in his office…a list or something, yeah. He's out delivering invitations. He won't be back until late tonight. If I can just get a look at that…well," he thought about the look on Lucina's face.

"Well at least they won't have to keep agonizing about it," he finished. His pace quickened as he headed towards Hand's office.

However, along his way there, he heard someone sobbing. It was interspaced with someone attempting to console them it sounded like. Fox, knowing everyone else was still at lunch, knew it was probably Zelda with Lucina.

Fox slowed, thinking he at least owed her some words of encouragement, started moving towards the door where the sobs were coming from.

At that moment the door flew open and Zelda walked out. She didn't see Fox until she closed the door, but then she looked up to see him standing awkwardly about two feet away.

She paused for a moment, surprised to see him, then her eyes narrowed and she slammed the door shut.

"_What_ are you doing here?" she hissed accusingly.

"I was just going to Hand's…I mean Isabelle's office," he replied.

"This isn't Hand's office!"

"I know, I know," Fox said exasperatedly, waving his hands. "I knew Lucina was upset and heard her and thought I should at least say something to help. You know, encourage her a bit?"

Zelda maintained a sharp glare and took a deep breath. Fox braced himself, but then she let out a huge sigh and her expression softened. Instead of standing so stiffly, she leaned against the wall, running her hands through her hair, looking like she wanted to pull it out.

"I know," she breathed. "So did Marth, but honestly, I don't know if there's anything we can say to her when even we don't know if she'll be here after tomorrow. I felt bad about sending him off like that, but this situation…_ugh_…these things are always so _stressful_."

Fox thought of the imagined piece of paper in Hand's office that he hoped would contain the list of people staying and leaving.

"You sure Hand didn't tell you guys anything?" Zelda asked.

Foxed snapped back to reality. "Wha-? Oh…no. He hasn't said anything to us. The only thing we know is that we're getting a bigger mansion."

Zelda's eyebrows raised. "Mario never mentioned that."

"Yeah," Fox continued. "It's like a whole two new floors. We're also moving to four a suite instead of three, but that's it. I'm surprised he even told us that much."

"Well," started Zelda, "that's a really good sign at least, but it doesn't guarantee anything. I mean…" she backed away from the door some, "…we've still always lost people each time these things happened."

Fox nodded in agreement.

The door opened once again. Zelda spun around to see Lucina standing shyly in the frame. Fox noticed her eyes were very red, and her hair had become quite a mess at this point.

"Oh," she said meekly, "hey Fox."

"Hey Lucina," Fox replied. Although the other two couldn't tell, he was feeling especially awkward standing in the presence of the person he had so confidently betted against. "Um…"

Zelda jumped in for the save. "Fox saw you running from the dining room and wanted to come by to help cheer you up some."

"Yeah," Fox added on helplessly.

"Oh," said Lucina with a sniff. "Thanks Fox. You're always so nice."

"Unless they touch his tank," mumbled Zelda. The three of them laughed a bit.

"I, uh, I think you'd want to go back to eat," said Fox, scratching the back of his head. "The other guys, Marth, Ike, I think they still want to see you."

"Okay."

Lucina started heading back towards the dining room. Zelda gave Fox a wink, which he responded to with a half cheerful wave. He then turned back onto his previous route.

Now he was determined to find that list, wherever it was or whatever it might be. If he could just _know_ what was going to happen tomorrow.

A minute later he was approaching Hand's office. Fox tested the door handle, which was unlocked. Hand usually left his office open when Isabelle was still around. He slowly turned it and looked inside.

The room was the same as it had been for years, aside from being somewhat empty. Lots of the work that usually piled high around the place wasn't there. Fox assumed this was because not much was going on anymore, and most of Hand's work was probably completed given he was now out delivering invitations. He gazed around the room, looking at drawers and desks where an important piece of information might be-

"FOX!" rang a sharp voice.

Fox jumped so hard he flew back out of the office and into the middle of the hallway.

"Who-?" but he stopped immediately upon seeing a small figure trotting up to him. It was Isabelle.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I, uh," Fox started, thinking fast. "I was told by Mario I needed to get some floor plans from you? I figured you might be in Hand's office?"

It was a pitiful excuse, for Isabelle had her own office she worked in. If Fox had truly been looking for the floor plans that she had made, he would've gone straight to her office.

Isabelle obviously didn't buy the lie, but she clearly had taken pity on him.

"Yes," she said, "I have them. Here…" and she dug out a collection of papers from the case she was carrying.

"Thanks," mumbled Fox. He began heading back to the dining room.

"Fox."

"Yeah?"

"Tell everyone I said good luck, alright?"

Fox turned to face her. She had a soft smile.

"Yeah," said Fox, smiling back, "I will."

But Fox, now in possession of the plans, didn't want to return to the dining room. He felt like bringing in the floor plans would only raise the anxiety of the place. Instead, he began marching up the stairs back to his suite.

Up until now, the rooms had been suites of three for a very long time. The last time they were put in groups of four was way back towards the beginning of the guild when there were only twelve of them and they hadn't made a whole lot of money yet. Fox's roommates were Link and Mario.

Link had already returned. He was laying across the sofa in his blue tunic, arm draped across his face for shade. He seemed to be napping but stirred awake when he heard the door open.

"That you, Mario?" he asked.

"Fox."

Link sat up. "You have those floor plans?"

"Yep."

Fox spread out the papers across the table in front of the couch. He sat down with Link and began organizing them.

"This…" said Link as the bigger picture came together. "This is huge!"

He was right, thought Fox. Not only was the mansion two whole floors taller, but the transition of three person suites to four massively expanded the size of each floor.

"Wait a minute," said Link suddenly.

"What?"

"None of us really thought about this, but with these, we can tell how many people will be living here!"

Fox paused. "I mean, yeah, but it doesn't really tell us much about who will be taking those rooms."

"It's at least something, which is a whole lot better than what Hand has given us so far," said Link. He began counting and multiplying the rooms quickly. "So the bottom room is obviously still all the basic stuff. Kitchen, dining room, whatever. Then, there's four floors with four suites each holding four people…"

"Not that one," said Fox, pointing at room shaped a little different than the others. It was accommodating some of the appliance space on the first floor, so it only fit three.

"Okay, and then a fifth floor with only two suites, for each, so that's…that's…sixty – no – seventy-one!"  
The two of them paused and looked at each other. That was a huge number of members. They thought they were reaching a breaking point at a little over fifty, but Hand had apparently decided to add nearly twenty more slots.

Whatever Hand was planning, this event was going to be much different than all the others.

* * *

**Note: There is a time gap between the end of this chapter and the next, which I may or may not fill depending on story consistency and pacing. There is a chapter already written but I wasn't a fan of the style so it's not included for now.**


	4. Reveal Day

Dead. Silence.

That was the deafening noise that dominated the scene in the auditorium. Silence. It pressed on everyone's ears and made the place feel as if it were underwater.

It was the most uncomfortable mix of excitement and fear. The thrill of meeting newcomers, and the dread on not knowing who might be leaving their ranks. It was all coming together in such an awkward fashion that silence appeared to be the only reasonable response.

The Big Eight had taken their seats at the front of the hall, facing the stage where Mr. Hand would first announce who would be leaving, followed by the newcomers. This was how it was done in past years, in an attempt to end the ceremony on good spirits. After all, there were dozens of cameras perched silently in the corners and the walls of the room. No press members were allowed inside, but it was being broadcasted live.

Mario was looking dead ahead at the podium, not even blinking until, finally, Mr. Hand arrived.

There was no reaction to his echoing steps as he marched towards the podium. It sounded like he was walking down the hallway of an underground prison.

Mr. Hand cleared his throat and quickly glanced at his notes before looking at them.

"Over the years, as champions, you endure some of the hardest battles, take the hardest hits, and fight for the most difficult wins, but none of these physical trials measure up to saying goodbye to a friend. Throughout my time here, this has always been the most difficult thing to do, letting go of champions."

He paused and looked across those seated in front of him. Fox was gripping his seat tightly, and Link had a slight rocking motion in his chair.

"This part usually consists of me announcing each name of those who will be leaving us, as well as a short story after their name of their time with us and the impact they left on our family of champions."

Fox almost couldn't take the tension anymore. They were seconds away from hearing who would be cut. He was certain he could feel the vibrations of those shaking behind him.

"Usually," Hand said again. "Yes that is what we usually do. But this is no usual time."

Fox felt the vibrations stop. Hand was giving them a piercing yet unreadable stare.

"After all, there have been some…adjustments in the business and our goals. So, in response to those who will be leaving our family today…"

Fox held his breath.

"That answer… is no one."

If there was a cannon blast for silence, this was it. The words didn't even echo. A mouse scuttling in a far corner would have been like nails on a chalk board. Fox's mouth was completely open. DK's arms slumped off his chair. Samus's hand, which had been twirling her hair nervously, fell to her lap in shock.

A full three seconds of deafening, unyielding, unbelievable silence.

Then Link turned to face Fox.

"HA!" he roared triumphantly, causing Fox to jump out of his seat with a yelp.

Pandemonium.

Absolute chaos erupted in the auditorium. Everyone exploded into cheers simultaneously as they climbed over each other to hug and clap hands.

"The boys are sticking together!" shouted Captain Falcon, fist bumping Sonic and Falco.

Lucina had a total nervous breakdown of emotions as Zelda and Palutena danced around her in glee.

"Alright!" said Ganondorf with a fist pump, and then patting Wario and Bowser on the back.

The pair of Corrins and Robins were all gathered in a giant sobbing group hug.

The celebrations lasted for another five minutes before Mr. Hand finally tried regaining control.

"Alright everyone," he said with a huge smile, "I still need your attention for the rest of the ceremony now! After all we shouldn't keep our new, or for some returning, guests waiting!"

Everyone jumped back in their chairs and politely looked at Mr. Hand. It was quiet again but there was an undeniable buzz of excitement in the air following the incredible news.

No one leaving. Fox couldn't believe it. Absolutely no one left behind this time. No painful separations. Nothing. Turns out the massive mansion expansion was for a good reason, because their numbers were about to get even bigger. Even Lucina, the Robins and Corrins, all of them-

His bet with Link hit him like a train, and he groaned when he turned and saw the smug smile on Link's face.

"Alright we actually have a lot of people to introduce so let's get rolling so we don't shoot too far past our broadcast window!" said Hand.

"How many people are we adding?" Fox asked incredulously.

"From the top in alphabetical order!" said Hand.

"CHROM!"

Lucina, already overcome by emotion, nearly passed out when she jumped out of her chair at seeing her father appear from behind the curtain and take the stage. Her legs buckled and some quick hands by Zelda let her gently back into her chair. Everyone applauded raucously.

"_Another_ one?" Fox said desperately as a man with a cape and a sword, the same style as Lucina and Marth, waved at the crowd. Link roared laughing through the applause. Chrom walked to the far left of the stage and took his place.

"I already have enough issues getting stabbed with the amount of swords this place has as it is, grumbled Fox. Link continued to snigger.

"DAISY!"

It was Luigi's turn to fall out of his chair. Peach, the blonde, tall princess of the Mushroom Kingdom wearing her typical pink dress, jumped up and down as Daisy, wearing an identical dress in orange, waved and stood next to Chrom.

"DARK SAMUS!"

Samus refused to clap and instead eyed the shadowy figure resembling Samus in her armored suit gliding across the stage. Everyone clapped politely but were confused as to what Dark Samus even was yet were too afraid to ask Samus.

"POPO AND NANA!"

This generated a great deal of noise. Popo and Nana, known together as the Ice Climbers, bounced across the stage to cheers. They had been cut out of the last competition due to what was rumored to be some internal controversy.

"INCINEROAR!"

A fireball smashed into center stage and the great fire Pokémon Incineroar rose from the flames in a striking pose. Everyone cheered at the spectacle and he soaked in every bit of applause on his way to stand next to the Ice Climbers.

"Okay another Pokémon I can handle just fine," remarked Fox.

"INKLING BOY AND GIRL!"

Two streaks of ink, blue and orange, streaked across the floor. There was some bubbling in the paint and suddenly two figures jumped out of the ink and landed on the stage.

"Okay," said Fox, applauding with everyone else. "That's weird."

"Are they like…made of ink or something?" asked Link. "And what's with the ink guns?"

The two newcomers stood next to the towering Incineroar, who waved at them with a big grin.

"ISABELLE!"

The following cheer was just as loud as when Mr. Hand announced no one would be leaving. Their beloved secretary, caretaker, and organizer, Isabelle, would be joining them on the field. She dashed across the stage with her little feet and bounced with each wave.

Link looked mortified. Fox roared with laughter and said, "Now she can legally smash you to bits when you're caught sneaking food from the kitchens! Better not break any more dishes, Hero of Time, or the puppy will getcha!"

"KEN!"

"HELL YEAH!" roared Ryu, a huge muscular fighter, from the back of the crowd as one of his rivals from back home took the stage.

"KING K. ROOL!"

DK clapped grudgingly while Ganondorf and Wario roared enthusiastically as what best looked like a walking, fat, short crocodile took the stage. K. Rool bowed with a smile at DK and the now irate Diddy Kong as he stood next to Ken, who was eyeing him with confusion.

"PICHU!"

A noise bomb went off. Everyone, villains and heroes alike, went ballistic as the tiny electric rat bounded onto the stage. Captain Falcon and crew were banging the chairs in front of them as they chanted "PI-CHU! PI-CHU! PI-CHU!" Ganondorf and Bowser were shouting and roaring triumphantly. Samus abandoned all regulation and ran to pick up Pichu, taking the tiny yellow ball back to her seat. Pichu had been part of one of the earliest competitions, back when there were only a handful of champions. The adorable rat had been dropped to everyone's dismay due to lack of support from the business side of things. The sudden return of Pichu after well over a decade had people beside themselves.

"POKÉMON TRAINERS! RED AND LEAF."

The noise continued to mount as more old time champions returned. Red and Leaf took the stage along with their Pokémon Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. A parade of Pokémon passed in front of the cheering crowd. Red and Leaf waved at Incineroar, who pounded his chest and waved back.

"RICHTER!"

After such an exciting return of a crowd favorite, there was a noticeable change in atmosphere as someone completely new took the stage. A handsome, strong man with black hair and an assortment of metal weapons including a gigantic chain whip and an iron cross.

"That looks painful," said Fox, eyeing the whip.

"RIDLEY!"

Ganondorf and Bowser went nuts.

"No way," said Fox, floored.

"Holy crap," said Link, running his hand through his hair, his eyes wide open. Even Mario couldn't help but drop his jaw for a half second before coming to his senses and applauding politely.

A couple more curses were uttered as a monstrous creature took the stage. It looked like a small purple dragon, hunched over and staring at them with cold dead eyes. It seemed almost timid as it stood next to Richter, who's mouth was slightly open staring at the beast.

"Hand has gone mad," said Fox, nervously laughing and looking for Samus's reaction. "I thought that Dark Samus weirdo was what she got called into Hand's office for. Not this freak!"

Samus was very focused on Pichu, and didn't even bother looking up.

"SIMON!"

A large man with long blond hair and weapons identical to Richter's arrived. The two obviously knew each other and seemed to be from the same place, but aside from that no one knew anything about these people. They waved at each other across the massive beast.

"SNAKE!"

"How many people did he manage to bring back?" roared Fox over the cheering, standing with everyone to greet another old friend. Yet another former champion had returned in the form of a tall, lanky man with a sharp haircut, chiseled face, and beard. It had been a decade since Snake had been a champion.

"I think that's everyone we've ever had!" Link shouted back. "Everyone except-"

"WOLF!"

Fox swore and fell to his seat. Somewhere over the noise the villains were making he heard Falco do the same. Of course, Hand was bringing everyone back, when meant he had to bring back this tool of a space pirate.

Wolf walked smoothly to his spot next to Snake.

"YOUR NEW AND RETURNING CHAMPIONS, EVERYONE!" shouted Hand.

It was quite a mess trying to get everyone sorted after all the introductions. New seats had been brought in and the new champions had taken their places among the crowd. There was so much excitement going on that it took Mario having to call through the mic for everyone's silence.

"Now-a," he started. "We have-a Loy to get to today. I will-a start with some basic assignments."

"First, all-a the newcomers and returners will need to-a turn in their luggage to Pikachu. Then, Yoshi will-a go over some basic a-rules after you turn that in. Then-a Fox will take you to a-show you your rooms. Afterwards those who have a-tools will turn them into Link and a-Samus in the equipment room."

"Pikachu is-a going to be just outside the right door. He will-a show you where exactly to put everything so it can be a-taken to your room."

Pikachu bounded for the door on the right and slipped through.

"Just beyond-a that, Yoshi will be there to hand you some a-books that go over all the rules of the a-house and the competition. He can also answer any questions you might a-have."

Yoshi got up and followed Pikachu.

"Yoshi will then point-a you to where Fox is. Fox will-a show you where you will be a-living."

"That's my cue," Fox said, getting up and patting Link on the back before leaving.

Fox heard Mario say, "And-a after the tour, anyone with items will-a check them in with Link and a-Samus."

Not a single person cut, thought Fox as he left the room and headed for the bottom of the new dorms. Not only that, they brought back everyone who had ever lived here, and they brought new faces on top of that.

Fox smiled. "Who's strings on the board did you have to pull to get this to happen," he muttered to himself.

Hand was their boss, but Hand also had to answer to a board of people who were investors of the competitions. They generally oversaw the health of the business, making sure it wasn't suddenly going to tank. However they also had a vested interest in who would be among the current roster of champions. After all, more champions cost more to maintain and keep healthy, and crowds sometimes turned out more for one champion than another. Fox assumed Hand really played his cards well to pull this off.

* * *

**Note: Unfortunately a bit of shameless exposition dump below because it goes through all the characters very quickly**

* * *

"Alright!" roared Fox. They had arrived at the entrance to the dorms. The huge gaggle of newcomers was amassed in front of him. Even some current champions were tagging along to see the new building and where they'd be living. Some of the veterans had already passed by earlier to get an early look at their room.

Most of the members looked up excitedly at him. Even Incineroar and Ridley looked anxious enough, although Ridley's paranoia was probably from how out of place he still felt. Ryu had tagged along with Ken and both had their huge arms folded looking expectantly at Fox.

"I'm about to take you to see your rooms! They're all 4 people per unit except for one that's 3. 4 units per floor except the top, which has 2. Obviously there are some exceptions for people like Popo and Nana. Each unit has a common area. Kitchens and utilities will be in a separate location. Make sure you listen to what I'm saying and where you're at! The last thing you want is to open the wrong door and see Cap half naked and posing in front of the mirror before he punches you into the room across the hall!"

The newcomers laughed at this idea, although some of the smaller ones seemed to wonder if Fox was joking or not about getting punched like that.

"Also, your rooms inside each room have already been preassigned! There's a nameplate on each door once you get inside. First floor it is then!" Fox marched the group up the first flight of stairs.

The hallways were very wide, with various tabletop games in the middle and four doors, two on each side a good distance apart.

"Unit A!" Fox started, pointing to the second door on the left. "Pikachu, Yoshi, Kirby, Jigglypuff! If you want some damn good food, talk to these guys. Don't steal any though or Kirby will eat you to make up for it."

"Unit B!" He pointed to the second door on the right. "Little Mac, Ken, Ike, and Ryu! Probably the most muscular unit and I wouldn't be surprised to see half a gym stuffed in their common area by the end of the week."

"Unit C!" The first door on the left. "Duck Hunt, Game and Watch, Pac-Man, and Pichu! Honestly, I have no idea what to expect from this group so explore at your own risk."

"And the first door on the right, Unit D! Greninja, Lucario, Rob, and Popo and Nana! Those guys will probably be testing some weird stuff to try and use in fights so think of them as a kind of lab."

"Alright keep moving! Turn around and go up the stairs behind you to the second floor!"

The group waddled up to the next floor.

"Unit A!" Fox started right away. "Luigi, Lucas, Mega Man, Chrom! Pretty friendly group of guys once you get to know them, but they all got experience as champions here, especially Luigi and Lucas."

"Unit B; Pit, Ness, Diddy Kong, and the Inkling Guy!" Fox pointed aimlessly into the crowd.

The boy with the blue, squid like hair jumped up and waved.

"The three returners in there are also quite experienced. Diddy likes to lay bananas everywhere to watch people fall on them so if you live on the floor, just be aware of that. Also, Pit is a terrible reader. We've tried to teach him some but he just never seems interested so don't hand him a book to read."

"In Unit C, we have Simon, Richter, Marth, and Snake!" The two relatives near the back of the crowd clapped hands. "Pretty sure those guys have enough personal belongings to blow the whole building up, so hopefully they put them away when we take them to the item storage. Just don't be surprised if Snake has an explosive lying around. Also do _not_ touch Marth's stuff unless you're in the mood for provoking him…which I am in half the time!"

"And for Unit D, Shulk, Redhead Marth-,"

"HEY!"

"-Cloud, and that buff fitness dude-,"

"It's Steve…"

"-anyways fun group! Moving on! Next floor!"

More shuffling. They ascended higher into the building. They could now see the people walking across the lawn on the other side of the road from the mansion at this height.

"Unit A, Falco, Captain Falcon, Incineroar-,"

A huge roar was let out.

"- and Sonic! Yeah, this is pretty much party central. You're not going to get a frattier group of guys than this. I think Cap and Falco held parties for two weeks straight one time. They'll let you know when they plan on tearing it up. Also if you live near their unit, expect a _lot_ of noise."

"Unit B, Mario, Link, DK, and yours truly," Fox said with an excessive bow. Some of the newcomers gave a low whistle. "Obviously, four of the Big Eight. If you need anything, we can probably help you out. Mario is pretty much the leader underneath Hand, so he'll have important stuff posted next to our unit and downstairs. We've been around since the beginning so we can tell you how things work around here."

"Unit C, Bowser, King K Rool, Wario, and Bowser Jr."

The large, fat crocodile gave a fist pump.

"Bowser is pretty chill nowadays, probably got too old and grumpy. Wario and Bowser Jr are the pranksters. You'll want to watch out for them."

"Unit D…whew, still got a floor and a half of this….Unit D! Ridley, Ganondorf, Wolf, King Dedede. The three vets here are pretty much the group of guys who had a bad rep coming in then turned into the chill tough guys." Ridley's head picked up. "Don't pick a fight with them though cause they still know how to kill you. Also, don't piss off Ganondorf unless you want that gigantic sword I saw him bring to the place in your face. Alright move it! Next floor!"

"Unit A! Zelda, Rosalina, Palutena, and Lucina!" Lucina had tagged along as well and beamed at her name being mentioned. Fox felt a bit of guilt in him. Meanwhile some of the guys had exchanged looks.

"Yeah, and if you guys get any ideas, Zelda is a very seasoned veteran who will burn you alive if you try to break in. Seriously, people have tried, none have succeeded. I'm sure someone will try again, and we will get to laugh at their burn scars when they appear at breakfast the next morning."

Fox wasn't quite sure he had convinced everyone, but that wasn't his problem. Zelda could take on five of these newcomers right now and not get a scratch.

"Unit B, Corinth, Cora, Robbie, and Robin." Fox paused for a moment. "…I would not want to help with organizing belongings in that room. Cora and Corinth have really cool swords if you're interested, and Robbie and Robin have some spell books but hardly anyone can read them. Also they're all really good at chess if anyone wants to challenge them."

"Unit C! Daisy, Samus, Bayonetta, and the buff fitness girl!"

"October…"

"Yeah her! Same advice as Unit A, except Samus will actually take pleasure in dangling you from her window while you plead for forgiveness. She kinda turns into a sadist when you piss her off."

"Unit D, The Inkling Girl," Fox pointed aimlessly again, and a girl with pink, squidlike hair jumped up and waved. "Isabelle, Peach, and Leaf!" Leaf also jumped up and gave Red a high-five."Peach and Isabelle are basically the moms of this place, so they're really good to talk to if you're having any personal issues. Really helps if you're in a slump and need to get back into the fighting spirit quickly."

"Alright, last floor, cram on up there before I lose my voice!"

The last floor was half the size of the others, this time with only two doors and a lot of windows on top.

"Unit A, Dark Samus, Mewtwo, Meta Knight, Dark Pit…honestly I'm surprised this group wasn't put in the basement."

"Hey, you're just jealous you don't have the top floor," called a voice. This person looked like Pit's twin but with black wings instead.

"When did you get here?" asked Fox. "Wouldn't expect you to care about newcomers."

"I don't, but your posse is in my way."

"Alright, whatever" said Fox, rolling his eyes. "Let Sir Edgelord through, guys."

The crowd parted and let Dark Pit through to his door.

"I'm sure he's got a very important meeting with the dark corner of his room or something," taunted Fox. Dark Pit ignored him and shut the door behind him.

"Yeesh, always so unhappy. I don't know how you'll put up with them Dark Samaaaaaaand you're already in that room as well."

Dark Samus had floated silently to the door and disappeared inside as well.

Fox paused for a moment.

"Anyways…the last unit on the top floor, Unit B! There's only three of you and hopefully you'll be a happier lot. Ollimar, Villager, and Red."

Fox sighed. "Alright finally. Now, you can't go to your rooms just yet. Get back here Incineroar. You'll just get in the way of the people moving your stuff into your room. I want all of you to go down to the item storage with Link and Samus, even if you don't have anything to turn in, and listen to them. Then you're free to go to your room. Dinner will be served by Kirby at seven, so be back in the dining hall around then. Don't need to be there before seven, just know that's when food will be appearing."

"There's no way I could tell you all the rules and what you need to know about this place. We'd be here until winter if I tried. You'll learn plenty just hanging around everyone."

**Note: Bit of a harsh stop to this chapter. Will probably patch it up some since the next chapter doesn't do much to connect.**


	5. Media Day

If feasts were usually chaotic, they were tenfold more so on the day newcomers arrived. There had been a considerable number of tables added, and many people were thrilled to interact with the newcomers. Simultaneously, the newcomers were now basking in presence and attention of the most famous champions ever. Red had even asked for Mario's signature on an empty Pokeball he had.

Red and Leaf had brought their two groups of roommates together at a table. Isabelle was constantly accosting Villager about not grabbing any food until Kirby said it was ready.

"Can't you just wait one moment?" she snapped. "They spent all day making this!"

Peach was listening attentively to Leaf talk and the Inkling Girl was beside herself with excitement interacting with Red and Leaf's Pokémon. Leaf was explaining to Peach how she had been wanting to join Red as a champion ever since he got to go.

"And so I was telling everyone when he was battling here last time 'That's my friend Red! I'm working to go there as well!'"

Incineroar had formed an immediate perfect chemistry with his roommates. They were each chugging a large soda bottle as fast as they could. Sonic finished first and slammed his down, followed immediately by Incineroar.

"Atta boy!" yelled Sonic, punching him in the arm.

Simon and Richter were pouring over some of the smaller weapons Snake had procured for them to look at. Meanwhile Snake and Marth were observing the odd tools the other two had brought with them.

"Snake!" called Peach once Richter had picked up a guided rocket launcher, cutting off Leaf midway through describing a battle. "Don't just let them play with that! They'll blow the table up!"

"It's fine," replied Snake, waving her concern away. "Safety's on." He seemed too intrigued by the glass bottle Simon had shown him. "So this explodes into flames when you toss it?" he asked Simon.

Ike and Ken were engaged in an intense arm wrestling match which was causing the table to bend slightly under the pressure. Luigi, Lucas, and Mega Man we're close by watching Ryu and Little Mac cheer them on.

Next to them, Cloud was staring hard at a chess board. Across from him was Robin, who had a small smirk on her face as she toyed with her opponent. Cora, Corinth, and Robbie were talking to Zelda, Rosalina, and Palutena. Lucina, meanwhile, was excitedly chatting with her father Chrom.

A curious case was Ridley. Ganondorf seemed to have taken it upon himself to get Ridley comfortable, and was loudly recounting the many times he had fought with Link.

"And so get this. I seal the guy in a time warp for seven years. Seven years! And what's the first thing he does when he gets out? What does he do when he's seen the world permanently altered, the town destroyed, and the sky black? He goes around smashing pots and cutting grass again! Never mind the castle now hovering over a pool of lava and the zombies in the streets, he's got dishes to smash!"

Dedede roared with laughter. Even Wolf was chuckling. Ridley was easing slowly into the group hearing that he wasn't the only one to have gone through this transition. By the sound of it, this Ganondorf guy had been wrecking havoc on Link for generations before they came here.

Link, back over at the table with Mario, Fox, and DK, scowled at Ganondorf.

"He knows damn well people hid good stuff in those pots," he grumbled. "Where else would you look if you came back to Hyrule seven years later and needed to get supplies?"

"Still," chuckled DK, "I'd like to have seen you smashin' pots while the world was on fire."

"Coming from the guy who chucked rolling barrels at the one person famous for jumping," retorted Link.

_CLANG CLANG CLANG_

Kirby appeared at the front of the room.

"Poyo!" Kirby exclaimed.

No one had a clue what Kirby was saying, but they all knew it had to mean dinner was ready, so they cheered. Incineroar's table began banging their fists on it in sync.

"_Not yet_!" hissed Isabelle as Villager reached for the starters. "Honestly, is this how you have acted when I haven't been here?"

Mr. Hand appeared next to Kirby.

"Really quick just before we start eating. Welcome, newcomers. I see you all have gotten to know everyone here and are fitting in well. That's good to see. However, as you all know we are a business and there are some business things I want to remind you of."

"The media day starts tomorrow at nine in the morning. There will be times posted on each floor with everyone's schedule. Obviously the older, more well known veterans will have longer time frames, but newcomers expect to have quite a bit of time as well. The press wants to get to know you so put on your best face. You may not have had your first battle but this is your first real impression to everyone of who you are. After that the first round of battles will be posted tomorrow night at nine. Again newcomers, be prepared to be jumping into the fray soon as many people will be interested to see you perform. That's all!"

"Poyo!" announced Kirby again, and proceeded to literally inhale an entire dish of food. Plate included.

"Uh, I think that means we can start eating," said Fox.

"Sounds good to me," said Link, diving in.

There was a huge clanging noise of dishes and silverware hitting each other as everyone passed food around to each other.

"I thought-a you were cutting down the wings?" Mario called over to Bowser as the latter dumped a dozen onto his plate.

"Special exceptions for feasts," he growled back. "I only get a few of these days per year."

"This is _amazing_," said Leaf, struggling to decide if she should continue eating the carbonara she just started or the soup she was eyeing on her left.

"Yes, Kirby has been known for being quite the cook since we met," said Peach, stretching to hand the salt over to the next table to Captain Falcon.

"Thank you miss," he said curtly, before turning around and rashly dumping it all over his steak.

"How do you even stand that?" asked Ike from the table next to the captain.

"Gotta build up a tolerance," said Captain simply.

"Huh?"

"It's been a while since I tasted the tears of my opponents," he continued. "Gotta build up the salt tolerance."

"Uh, okay pal," said Ike, turning back to his table.

"He seems confident," Ken said curiously to Ike.

"Confident doesn't come close to describing his brashness," said Ike, stabbing at his plate of chicken and rice. "The guy would jump off the new dorms right now if he thought it'd make him more popular with the ladies."

Over where Cloud had been playing Robin in chess, things were getting desperate.

"Cloud, eat some food before you try and move," laughed Robin. "I won't hold it against you."

"No, you're trying to distract me," said Cloud with a determined tone. He hadn't moved a muscle for nearly two minutes. "I will not let you do that to me."

With his queen, both rooks, a knight, and half his pawns gone, things were looking bad for Cloud.

"Eat fooooood," said Robin, pushing a plate into his line of sight.

"So how'd you guys get so good at chess?" asked Palutena. "I don't think I've ever asked."

"We used to be tacticians where we came from," said Cora. "We found chess was the closest thing to what we used to do all the time, so we started playing it a bunch against each other."

"Pichu Pichu!"

Pichu and Game and Watch, a two dimensional, short, solid black figure dubbed by the others as GW, had lined a series of pie slices in a straight line across their table. In one smooth motion, Pac-Man chomped his way through them all. This seemed to entertain Pichu a great deal for some reason. So many new faces were now here since the electric rat had last been a resident, and it was almost too much of a stimulant.

"Isn't that the mini-Pikachu that always hurt himself?" asked Fox.

"Yep, I think it's got itself more under control now," said DK. "The Pichu I knew would've already exploded and knocked itself out with all this stimulus. 'Member how it would occasionally knock itself out at Cap's parties?"

Link choked on a piece of hamburger. "Yeah, because we jacked it up on energy drinks and it started blasting off the walls until it blasted itself with an electric attack. That was hilarious, although we probably would've been laughing less and more worried if we hadn't been drunk."

"Ahh, you-a neglected to tell me that part when I asked what-a happened," said Mario, eyeing Link. "Let's-a not give the extremely small creature enough caffeine to wake Bowser up again, shall we?"

About an hour later, the atmosphere was much more subdued. Satisfied stomachs had quelled the excitement from before, and people began to slowly meander their way to their new rooms. The party table had consumed all the beer and wine near them until Isabelle snatched it away from them saying, "The last thing _you_ need to do, Captain, is show up on the first day hungover! You're supposed to be a role model!" They proceeded to loudly sing their way out of the dining room and to the dorms.

"Alright, we should probably pack it in," said Fox. "We always get signed up for hours of press time so I want some sleep."

"Good idea," said Link. They both got up from their table and left the room.

"Hey guys." Zelda and Palutena appeared from behind on their right as they approached the dorms.

"Oh hey guys," said Link. "How's Lucina?"

Fox felt another pang of guilt.

"Oh she's great," said Zelda. "She couldn't stop talking with her dad. It's obviously a huge relief for her. Not that _I_ thought that she was in much danger. What's wrong, Fox?" She said suddenly.

"Oh," stammered Fox, "I uh, you know. I just felt a little guilty about the whole thing."

"Guilty?" questioned Palutena.

"Oh um…you know," he was really floundering now. "I just would've felt bad for her, you know? Being around so long and her getting kicked out after working so hard."

Zelda's eyes narrowed.

"You bet on her getting kicked out, didn't you?"

"How-?"

"My power is quite literally wisdom, Fox, you should know that. I can figure things out."

"Mine's courage," boasted Link awkwardly.

"Interchangeable with stupidity," Zelda threw back. Link shrunk away from her but was still speaking defiantly.

"Hey, I betted in favor of her, thank you!"

"That doesn't mean anything!" Zelda snapped. "You were still betting _on_ her! She's a person!"

"I don't see how putting my money in faith of her doing well is bad," grumbled Link.

Zelda was unconvinced.

"Well, see you guys tomorrow," said Palutena, eyeing Zelda's icy glare. "Another big day."

"Yeah, see ya," said Fox. The two girls left up the stairs while they walked into their room.

When they got inside, Fox turned to Link and put on a ridiculous expression.

"Mine's courage!" he exclaimed, then bust out with laughter.

"Shut up," said Link, red with embarrassment. "Hey, there's our media day schedules." He pointed at four slips of paper on the table in the common room.

"Oh boy," said Fox somewhat apprehensively. The Big Eight always got heavy media day schedules filled with reporters barking at them for hours. "Looks like Hand wants us set up by eight forty-five. Ugh, the eight of us are stuck with the big shot reporters for the first two hours."

The reporters for the biggest news companies covering them and their battles were always trying to grind every little morsel of information out of them. Press conferences with all eight original members were extremely rare. Any time they did occur, it was hours of being shouted at over obscure, sometimes difficult to answer questions, and they always had to be careful what they said on some topics. Say something bad about another champion on accident, and the next day the leading story will be about the made up grudge the press concocts overnight.

"Remember when we used to deflect questions to Mario all the time?" Said Link.

"Yeah, and then he got so fed up with it he just never said anything when we did it again and it resulted in some really awkward silences."

Link gave a short laugh. "Good times. Had to have been at least fifteen or so years since we last did that."

"We only got away because none of us knew what we were doing back then. Schedules got mixed up, rules kept changing, there weren't any standards to what we did. Now it's all etched in stone, probably kept in a shrine guarded by Isabelle's vengeful soul. Pretty sure if they got to follow me giving the newcomers a tour of the dorms the top story tomorrow would be about me wanting to lock some of the people here in a basement."

"Sorry, what?" Link asked.

"Never mind."

Link looked further down his schedule past their first press conference.

"Solo interviews for another hour after a break. Gross. Hey at least we don't have to do joint interviews with any of the newcomers! Those spots have already been filled!"

"Good," said Fox flatly. "I hate how they always throw them out there without any training. The veteran always has to cover for dumb things the newcomer might say. I'd rather get electrocuted by Pikachu over and over than do that."

"Ole Ganon has Ridley," observed Link, looking further down the paper. "Wonder how he's going to deal with that. Can Ridley talk? He brought some weird voice contraptions with him to the equipment room. I didn't want Samus within twenty feet of the guy so I handled all his stuff myself."

They both had sat down on the lounge chairs facing the table.

"Yeah, how'd that go with her? She try to blast his face off?" asked Fox.

"No, she just ignored him like at the reveal ceremony," said Link. "Don't think he cared. He's probably glad she's not giving him attention."

"Weird. Oh, and Cap has Incineroar," said Fox, pointing further down the schedule. "That's a disaster waiting to happen. We don't even know if they'll show up sober."

"Incineroar might get excited but Cap usually knows when to draw the line with the press," Link pointed out. "He's all fun and games here but he's always quiet outside."

"Fair," replied Fox. They both examined the rest of the list. "More interviews with some of the smaller reporters throughout the day. Those are never too bad. Then schedule releases later on. We'll get swarmed by questions then once we know who we fight first."

Mario and DK arrived through the door.

"Well," said Link, tossing the schedule back to the table and getting up from his chair, "I think I'm going to start prepping for bed.

"All-a ready?" asked Mario.

"Might as well," said Fox, also standing up. "Hella full day tomorrow. Don't want to loose focus and have to deflect more questions to you."

"You've done your own interviews for far too long for that to work anymore," said Mario.

* * *

"Single file please! You should have your seating assignments already! Do not sit somewhere else as we are expecting full attendance!"

The morning sun was shining brilliantly on the front lawn of the mansion. Dozens of stations had been set up along with thousands of chairs facing them. Even more daunting we're the hundreds of cameras placed everyone overnight with wires going all over the place.

It was eight fifty in the morning and the Big Eight were sitting apprehensively at a long table in front of at least 200 chairs, all of which were being filled by reporters. There was a good deal of commotion as the seats had been tightly packed near the table they were all sitting at. Behind the chairs, cameras were all pointed at the table expectantly, their operators lounging before the event began.

"Please, let people by who need to get to the middle!" called a security guard desperately. The hired enforcement was being paid generously to deal with the mess of media day, but it didn't diminish the stress.

"This is nuts," whispered Fox to Link. "I always say I forget how many people usually show up for this, but this is way more than we've ever had."

"What even would they want with us," asked Link. "We're not even the main talking point right now, they should be focused on all the returners and newcomers."

Once everyone had sat down they got very quiet as they looked expectantly at those sitting at the table. Fox looked over at the other tables.

Ganondorf had volunteered to be Ridley's spokesperson. Champions who couldn't speak well or at all usually had someone appointed as their spokesperson who would answer questions on their behalf. The two of them were lounging. Ganondorf seemed to had figured out a way to get some basic communication down, because he was discussing something with him. The chairs in front of them were empty, they had a while before their interview started.

Lucina had, obviously, paired with her father Chrom. She was bouncing in her chair, still ecstatic from the day before. It made Fox happy to see her so cheerful. Their chairs were also empty as they didn't have any events slated for a bit.

Captain Falcon and Incineroar, however, did have a small group of people talking to them informally. Fox was astounded that they both looked in perfectly good shape after last night, but with the Captain's helmet, Fox could never truly tell if he was hungover.

A bell chimed somewhere in the city. Nine o'clock.

Mario tapped the mic. "So, I-a think I'll just start here in the front row," and he pointed to someone Fox recognized from many other interviews.

"Kaitlin Panther, Corneria News," she began. "What are each of your opinions on the vast expansion of champions?"

On the far right, Pikachu and Kirby began hammering at touchscreens. While both weren't capable of speaking, they didn't need a spokesperson. They had learned to communicate via machine for these events, even if it took some time. Meanwhile, Yoshi began speaking.

"I think it's very exciting," he started. "I'm sure all of us here remember the more intimate times when it was just the 8 of us, but I feel that the addition of new people has been good for both spectators and us. It provides many more scenarios and styles for people to enjoy and for us to experience."

"I see it as a net positive," said Samus. "Sure keeping track may get a little chaotic but more champions means more characters and more battles for people to get excited about."

Fox was next. "I can't imagine anyone who would be disappointed with more. It adds to the excitement in my opinion."

The remaining four also gave their same pre-planned answer, Kirby and Pikachu's via a computer. They all knew this softball question was coming and knew how to answer it.

The next hour was to be filled with the same cycle. Question, everyone takes a turn answering, next question. Most of the questions were obvious, and they all had their answers made for them. Occasionally there would be one about the newcomers they had to think quick for, but nothing challenging. Easy was the expected format for the first hour.

But then someone asked something that threw them all off balance.

"What's your plan to maintain the entertainment value for the spectators?"

It was asked by a reporter from the very city they were in. Fox stared at the guy for a second, mouth slightly open, before looking at Mario. Even Mario looked a little taken aback by the question.

_Plan to maintain the entertainment? _Fox thought incredulously. They were _the_ sporting event everyone watched. What maintenance of entertainment could possibly be required?

Mario, quick on his feet, came up with an answer.

"We believe-a the formula we have been using for some time is a tried and tested one that provides something-a spectators enjoy and will continue to-a utilize it."

But the reporter wasn't done. He continued by asking, "Are there any plans to make any adjustments to the current system for the sake of entertainment?"

Mario definitely looked confused this time, and he simply replied, "No."

That was a good an answer as any in Fox'a opinion. The question was totally random and didn't make a whole lot of sense in his mind. However, they didn't have time to think about it as the next question was already being launched at them.

"Are there any plans to change the current format of the competition?"

Now Fox really thought he was hearing things. The format they had settled on was forged through years of trial and error. Why would anyone want to go back to the chaos of changing the rules all the time?

Once again, Mario didn't have anything to say but "No. We feel that the-a current system has served us quite-a well over the years and don't see-a need to change it. No point in-a fixing what isn't broken."

The following question ("Which newcomers are you most excited to face?") was much more par for the course and things began to settle down, but Fox was still suspicious.

"What the heck was up with that?" he said to Link after their conference was over.

"Up with what?" Link asked.

"The questions about 'entertainment value' and changing the rules. Where did those even come from?"

"Oh yeah," said Link. "Honestly I'm just glad we had Mario again to back us up. I don't think anyone was ready for that to be asked, but he handled it pretty well."

They began heading towards the resting area that had been set up for the champions to enjoy between sessions as the summer day wore on. A large tent with water and food.

"I just want to know what kind of story they're trying to write that requires those kinds of questions," said Fox.

"I wouldn't sweat it too much," said Link, taking a lemonade. "People are always trying to get new, fresh angles on stories. I don't think it meant anything."

Fox didn't have his personal session for some time, so he decided to sit at the back of the crowd for Ridley's. Since the Big Eight has wrapped up, all the individual champions were getting interviewed, starting with the newcomers and returners.

"I'll be speaking for Ridley today," said Ganondorf into the mic. "I got an opportunity last night to train with him some and get a feel for his fighting style so I'll be ready to answer any questions on that."

Fox wondered when Ganondorf could've possibly found time to train one-on-one with Ridley between the feast last night and sleeping.

The first reporter raised their hand. "Could you give us an overview of Ridley's style and if it compares to anyone we know of?"

"Strong, slow hits," started Ganondorf. "He will have an easy time keeping people off of the stage while fighting. He's got some projectile style attacks that are versatile. There are some problems with being such a big target due to his size, and his slow hitting nature makes it easier to dodge, but I'm sure the latter can be worked out with time."

Sounds like you, thought Fox. Ganondorf himself was quite slow with some devastating attacks that would leave anyone they hit sore for the next week. Ganondorf seemed to leave the second half of the question unanswered since this fact seemed obvious.

"How does Ridley feel being here as a Champion?"

"I think he's a little surprised to be honest. I don't think he expected someone of his type to be called in to a competition like this, but hey, he's not the only one like that. I think once he's warmed up to the crowd he'll actually enjoy the spotlight."

"Really taking him under your wing aren't ya, Ganondorf?" muttered Fox. It seemed like the best option. Ridley had to make sure Samus wasn't around because she most likely would go nuclear on him if they got too close, but he was just like all the other villains here. Feeling like an outcast at first before settling in and getting along.

"Are you Fox," said someone on his left.

Fox looked up. It was the reporter from Corneria at the morning Big Eight conference. She looked like a walking cat.

"Yeah, that's me," said Fox. "Kaitlin, right?"

"Yes. Big fan," she said, shaking his hand. "My parents were in the shelters at Corneria during the Aparoid invasion so I can't really thank you enough for what you did."

Fox waved it aside, "I'm sure anyone in my position would've wanted to help at the time. Is there something you wanted?"

"Well, just off the record, what do you think of all these newcomers and returners? You've got a huge crowd now."

"Yeah," said Fox. "And a much bigger set of dorms to show for it. I honestly think it's more fun this way. More people, more types of fights, more new stuff to experience."

"Hmm," Kaitlin said thoughtfully.

"You don't think so?" Fox asked.

"Oh no I think it's great as well," she said. "But I'm also of the mind that Hand can do no wrong with what he's got here. I trust him. It's just, I don't think everyone else does."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she started. She wasn't quite making eye contact with Fox. Instead she was focused on Ridley up on stage. "Some think he's gone a little overboard, bringing this many people on."

Fox paused, then remembered the one reporter from in town at the conference.

"Like the guy who asked us about maintaining entertainment value or whatever?"

"Yes," said Kaitlin, "people like that. They seem to think Hand has lost his touch a little bit, and that he's compensating by making the number of champions bigger than ever."

Fox rolled his eyes. "They can think that all they want," he said. "They'll shut up when our ratings blow all the records out again."

"That is what I'm hoping," she replied. "You know how people like that are. Any sign of weakness and they'll jump all over it and turn it into the biggest story around. Bunch of vultures…" she finished venomously.

"I would just let things go. They'll see how well we're still doing and they'll crawl back into the shadows again until this happens years later," said Fox.

Kaitlin nodded. "Well, I look forward to seeing you out there on the field again."

"Thanks," said Fox, shaking her hand. She left him.

After Ridley's interview Fox made his way back to the tent. He had a little bit longer before his own interview. Quite a few champions were here, as everyone was either at a station answering questions or waiting here for their next assignment.

"Hey there, Fox boy," someone growled. Fox turned and met Bowser's giant hand patting him on the head. "Saw you talking with that nice lady back there. Not hitting on the reporters already are ya? Can't imagine Krystal would-"

"Shut it," said Fox, swiping Bowsers hand off his head. "She just wanted to ask more questions about what I thought of all the new people joining up."

"Ah, well that's boring," said Bowser, sitting down at a table.

"Have you already done your interview?" Fox asked.

"Yeah," said Bowser. "They flooded us after you guys were done with them. Seemed to care about the newcomers more than us, as per usual."

"Yeah, they couldn't stop asking us questions about them," said Fox. "Pretty typical, honestly."

"Mario said you had some curveballs, though?"

Fox shook his head. "Just some guys looking for a story. Talking about entertainment value and what not, as if we aren't the biggest sporting competition around. You'd think someone from in this city itself would be aware of that."

Bowser chuckled, "Seemed to get you riled up plenty."

"It was just a stupid question," said Fox.

"Hey guys!"

Leaf had just returned from her interview.

"Heya," said Fox.

"So how'd you do?" asked Bowser. For all his roughness, Bowser made a point to give newcomers a break and be nice with them. Once they were settled in, though, they were fair game.

"Not too bad I don't think," she said. "Red covered some of the hard questions for me. I think I got off easy since Red and I use the same Pokémon so everyone already kinda knows what I'm like."

"Figures," said Fox.

"Least you're not like what Ridley and Incineroar have to go through," said Bowser, looking towards Incineroar's giant crowd. "The reporters are having a field day with them."

"How's Incineroar?" asked Fox.

"Cocky," snorted Bowser. "He'll fit right in with Cap. Probably bring half the new dorms down with them. Did you notice they're right underneath Zelda's room?"

"Seriously?" said Fox. He thought back to the floor plans. "You know, now that you say that, they would be in the room under them. Haha, that's going to result in disaster. Cap is the biggest flirt in the house, and they already generate so much noise as it is."

"I overheard Zelda telling him that if he gets too out of control she's sending her knight down to clean them up."

"Couldn't she just teleport down there and deal with them herself?" asked Fox.

"Not through walls and floors."

"Ah, that's right."

Leaf slumped into a chair. "Ugh, there's going to be so much I have to learn about everyone if I want to have a chance. You guys have been doing this for years and I'm just starting."

"You'll be fine," growled Bowser. "Red got his feet under him in no time. Hand wouldn't have invited you if he didn't think you could handle it."

"Positive Bowser?" Fox joked.

"Only to the newcomers," Bowser growled. Anyways, I'm too burnt to start anything, and it's too damn hot out."

"Didn't you literally live in lava filled castles at one time?"

"Yeah, temperature controlled, lava filled castles," Bowser corrected him. "What do you think I am, a savage?"


	6. Opening Day

At 9pm sharp, schedules went up online and everyone immediately jumped on them.

"Dammit," said Fox. "Pikachu in my first match? Really? I hate fighting him, nothing but electric shocks the whole time. Puts my fur on edge."

10 matches per fighter were already assigned, with more to be assigned in the future. Hundreds of events lined up. It was going to get very busy soon. Every week there would be two matches on Friday, two on Saturday, and three on Sunday.

"Mario and DK starting things off again as usual," said Link. "They fight tomorrow night, then Yoshi against Samus right after, followed by me against Kirby and you against Pikachu.

Fox looked through the rest of his schedule, searching for any newcomers.

Link sat up in the sofa. They were in their common area of their unit with Mario and DK, who were lounging in the other chairs. After the interviews they were so burnt that they just wanted to go look at their upcoming schedule then head to bed early. They could hear the muffled noises next door that was Captain Falcon's room partying after a hard day's work.

"I got a fight against that Ken guy," said Fox. "The one Ryu knew?"

"Looked like a carbon copy of Ryu to me," rumbled DK. "Seems like Hand got a lot of those."

"Those-a what?" asked Mario.

"People who seem just like someone else. Daisy's probably gonna to be just like Peach. Ken looks like Ryu. Dark Samus is actually a copy of Samus. Just seems like a lot o' similarities."

"Speaking of Dark Samus," said Link. "Neither Dark Samus or Ridley is facing Samus at all. Guess Hand didn't want something getting out of hand."

"Huh," said Fox. He almost wanted to see what those fights would've turned out to be, even if Samus did rip the stage in half in the process.

Over in Zelda's room, her temper was running short.

"Two nights in and we're already two for two on being obnoxiously loud," she complained. Captain Falcon in the room below had been excitedly playing beer pong against Falco and it sounded as if the ping pong ball was being shot off of every wall in the room each throw.

"No one's going to stop you going down there and shutting them up yourself," said Palutena from a hammock she had strung up at the side of the room. She was lazily flipping through the schedules that had just been posted.

"I'm just about ready to," said Zelda, gritting her teeth as Cap let out a triumphant roar and there was a sound of a table being smashed.

Lucina was sitting on a chair upside down with her legs hanging off the top and her head laying on the table. "They'll pass out soon enough. If it gets to being too late, we can just go down there ourselves and tell them off."

"Oh yeah, I'm sure a drunk Cap will be someone we can reason with," Zelda said with heavy sarcasm. She was torn between wanting to bash Cap's face in and wanting to be lazy and not do anything after a long day.

Rosalina curled up in a ball in her chair. "I usually don't care," she said. "I'll sleep right through it anyways."

Zelda gave an annoyed flick on her phone and slid down through the schedule. She would be facing Ness, one of the two short boy champions with psychic powers, in her first match.

"Anyone got fights that are particularly interesting," asked Lucina.

"I have one against Ganondorf," said Palutena.

"Ew," said Zelda instinctively.

"Aw, man," said Lucina, disappointed. "I have to fight Pichu? I don't want to fight Pichu. I want to love Pichu."

"Tough break," said Zelda flatly.

"Are you alright, Zelda?" asked Rosalina.

At that moment all four of the boys below burst out in shouting and laughter. Zelda slammed her phone down on her chair's armrest and stared daggers into the air.

"Can I just set them on fire?" she asked to no one.

There was a knock on their door.

"It's Samus," they heard. Zelda flicked her wrist and the lock came undone.

"Come in," Zelda called, still irritated.

Samus opened the door. She was already in a set of night clothes.

"Are those guys keeping you up as well?" she asked. Her eyes were a little red as if she had been trying to fall asleep.

"We haven't gone to bed yet," said Rosalina.

"But they are being loud as hell," snapped Zelda.

"Alright," said Samus. "Just wanted to make sure it wasn't just me. I'm gonna go shut them up."

Samus left them and headed down the stairs to the next floor. Each step was like a lead boot falling down. The emotional and mental stress of the past twenty-four hours was a lot more than she was used to doing as of recent. Not much compared to her bounty hunting days, of course, but that was a different kind of conditioning she was under. Now it was putting up with stupid crap each day.

She arrived at the next floor and walked straight for the second door on the left, making note to go right past the first door without any acknowledgement of it, for that was the unit Ridley was in.

She pounded twice on the door.

"Who that?" called Falco.

"It's Samus," she called back.

The door flung open and the anthropomorphic blue eagle stood in front of her.

"Yes?" he asked politely.

"Uh, first of all," started Samus, looking past Falco and into the room, "why is Cap holding Incineroar upside down?" This alarming sight had demanded an answer. Captain was standing on top of a sofa, dangling Incineroar by his legs in front of Sonic who was holding a beer can, frozen and staring at Samus.

"Uh," started Falco, looking back at the scene over his shoulder.

"You know what, don't even care," said Samus. "Shut the hell up. You're keeping the whole building up, and if you don't, I'll send Mario next time."

For all of Captain's audacity, he still commanded a certain respect for the Big Eight, and especially for Mario. He gave her a big smile and a thumbs up whispering loudly, "Don't worry, we won't be as noisy."

Samus rolled her eyes. "Better not," she said as she shut the door.

She immediately heard some muffled commotion on her way back to the stairs.

"Idiots," she growled.

Upon walking passing the unit containing Ridley's room, the door flung open. Samus jumped back out of shock and looked at who had appeared.

Ganondorf was standing in the frame with his usual jeans and black hoodie. Samus let her arms down, which had been raised in defense. "What're you up to," she said, acting as if she hadn't just jumped the entire length of the hallway.

Ganondorf looked curiously at Samus as he let the door close behind him. "I wanted to go get something to eat before I went to bed. You?"

"Just got done shutting up the boys over there," she replied, nodding her head over to Captain Falcon's unit.

"Yes, they were starting to get a bit out of hand," said Ganondorf, looking at the closed door at the other end of the hall. "But," he looked back at her, "I assume that's nothing to do with why you nearly jumped through the wall when I opened the door?"

"No," said Samus, looking away and saying, "it's nothing."

"Hard to believe nothing would cause a seasoned bounty hunter to nearly jump out of her night clothes," said Ganondorf.

Samus returned her gaze back to Ganondorf, reading him. He didn't seem to be in a pushy mood, but his raised eyebrows and leveled voice tone let her know that he knew what she was thinking.

"I figured _he_ was about to bust through that door," she muttered. Ganondorf nodded and indicated that they should walk downstairs and out of earshot from the door.

On the way down the steps Ganondorf responded, "And what would you have done if it had been him?"

"I don't know," she said. She previously had no intention of going anywhere near Ridley. It just so happened the unit he lived in was right next to Cap's. "Probably would've just ran away back to my room. Not like I would want to be in his presence any more than I needed to."

Ganondorf shrugged. "Well, that is certainly a much better response that I would have thought."

"What did you think I would've done?"

"I thought I would have to either come pull you off of him before your broke his neck, or I'd be rubbing laser burn marks from my door frame for the next week."

They entered into the dining hall on the first floor. When there wasn't a huge feast in being prepared and served, it was frequently stuffed with non-perishable food items as well as all types of ingredients next to the now opened up kitchen. Kirby usually had the kitchen to himself when preparing feasts, but in the middle of the night, it was open for anyone to use.

"Do you really think I'm that short tempered?" she asked. Ganondorf grabbed a can of soup, a bowl, and headed into the kitchen.

"Of course not," he said, pouring the soup into the bowl and beginning to heat it up in the microwave. Samus folded her arms and leaned against one of the counters. "On the contrary," he continued, "given the types of people who live here, you're one of the most level headed out of all of them. I just wouldn't blame you if your rationality left you when it came to him."

"You wouldn't?" asked Samus.

"I know what it's like to be consumed by hatred," said Ganondorf. "Whether its righteous or not, it has the same intoxicating effect. One tends to lash out in favor of the easiest solution rather than keep your head on straight."

Samus didn't respond. It would make sense that Ganondorf would have experience with these issues. Back when he became a champion, Link and Zelda were borderline murderous towards him. Link had always been a hot head, but Zelda in particular Samus had never seen lose her cool so much. Years later, with Ganondorf becoming rather passive, the rage had significantly subsided. They understood each other thoroughly, and, despite never being the best of friends, still respected each other.

Ganondorf retrieved his heated soup and headed back into the empty dining hall. He and Samus sat facing each other.

"So, what do you suggest?" she asked.

"Well," he said, "I wouldn't be the expert on what you should do. You should talk to Zelda about that. What I can tell you is how he feels."

"And why should I care about that," she responded flatly.

Ganondorf raised a finger. "Even if you have no interest for the foreseeable future on coming to terms with him, you ought to at least understand him."

Samus looked away. "Sorry, but I'm not exactly interested in doing that right now."

Ganondorf paused to eat his soup. Samus stared towards the front of the room, where Hand had appeared yesterday to greet the newcomers. Hand, who invited Ridley himself, something she could never understand. Some wounds just cut too deep.

"Well, no one's pushing you," said Ganondorf. It's not like it's my head on the line if you lose your cool. I'd just make sure that you don't let it get in the way of any of your job. After all, you've got a big day tomorrow."

* * *

"Whoa."

Leaf had just walked into the stadium. It was opening day. Four major events scheduled for today, all of them featuring members of the Big Eight going against each other. Thousands of people were pouring into the venue, filling the rows and rows of chairs surrounding the stage.

Up above, the huge display was now alive and had details of the upcoming matchup.

Mario (-110) vs DK (+125)

Starting in: 15min 32sec

Mario and Donkey Kong's pictures were staring down from the display at the spectators below.

"Yep," said Bowser, "it's a pretty nice place."

"I had only seen it on the TV before in the past, but I didn't realize it was this huge! The stage looks tiny now!"

Indeed, the stage which the champions would soon be dueling it out on looked absolutely miniscule compared to the towering stands around it. A small feature among the thousands of chairs.

"And we get some of the best seats," Bowser continued. He pointed to a box right in the middle of the stands about halfway up which looked right over the stage. "Might get a bit crowded since everyone is coming today, but it's pretty comfortable."

"Is it because there are so many champions?" Leaf asked.

"Partly. Board members also show up to watch sometimes. And then there's friends and family of the board, and Hand, other special guests, you know."

Bowser and Leaf headed behind the stands and made their way to the box seating area. There were a flood of people moving about, trying to get their seats.

The appearance of Bowser and Leaf was immediately noticed. People began crowding them immediately. They weren't the only ones being swarmed. Leaf could see Peach and Daisy together drawing a considerable crowd. Ganondorf and Ridley were also getting some attention. Incineroar and Captain Falcon were strutting through the crowd like proper celebrities.

"Oh," said Leaf, alarmed as the huge group approached her and Bowser asking for pictures and signatures. She saw Bowser happily agree to take selfies with the fans and sign anything. She followed his lead and grabbed a pen.

Up in the press box, Zelda and Palutena had already gotten themselves settled. They had taken up seats right next to the windows looking over the stage outside. Lucina was still out with her father and Rosalina.

"Zelda, Palutena, how are you guys?"

Hand had just arrived in the box.

"Hey, Hand," said Zelda. "We're doing fine. Just relaxing and stuff. What're you up to?"

"Well," said Hand, adjusting his tie and looking out the window. He was wearing a fine black suit in stark contrast to Zelda and Palutena's hoodies and jeans. "First I had to meet the board members this morning when they arrive. They got here well before most of the crowd started showing up, and they're over there at the bar right now. Then some of the partners began arriving. Broadcasting people, you know. We did some final testing on the broadcasting equipment to make sure everything was working as expected. Some of the other special guests, sweepstakes winners and celebrities and whatnot, just started arriving so I've been getting them situated. Overall a productive morning."

Zelda's eyebrows were raised. She slumped deeper into her chair. "I had breakfast, if that counts as being productive," she said.

"Well, you have more important things to worry about later," said Hand with a smile. "How about you, Palutena?"

"I don't have any events until next week," she said, "so it's all training for me until then."

A booming voice echoed around the stadium.

"WELCOME LAAADIEES AND GEEENTLEMEEEEN!"

Hand jumped and said, "Looks like I need to go! Have fun!"

The crowd had erupted at this greeting. Most of the seats had been filled in by now. The sea of chairs surrounding the stage had become a wall of spectators.

Just then, Bowser and Leaf had made their way into the press box.

"Alright," said Bowser, taking a seat next to Palutena and rubbing his hands together, eyeing the stage with hunger. "Let's see DK smash that plumber to bits."

Palutena laughed, "Never a dull moment with you two, is there?"

Leaf had taken the seat next to Zelda.

"Picture?" asked Zelda.

"Oh, m-me?" stammered Leaf.

"Of course, you," said Zelda, pulling her phone out and stretching it out in front of them. "It's your first big day as a champion, you gotta have something to remember it with!"

She took the picture.

"At least," she continued while she slumped back into her chair and returned her phone, "something that doesn't involve any of the parties Cap is going to throw tonight. We're going to have plenty enough to remember from those probably."

"Oh," said Leaf, still unsure, "are you not a fan of them? Peach mentioned they get out of hand a lot and you have to live right above them."

"On days like this they're a blast," said Zelda, "but when he's partying at two in the morning when absolutely nothing happened that day? Yeah, they get pretty annoying."

"AAAAND NOW! LET'S START THIS OFF WITH A BANG AS WE START OUR COMPETITION WITH THE TWO THAT STARTED IT ALL! MARIOOOOOOOO VERSUS DONKEEEEEY KOOOOOONG!"

Leaf was thankful they were inside the box, because the announcer and the crowd noise had to be deafening given how loud it still was where they were.

Up on the stage, Mario had jumped up onto the left side and began bouncing up and down on his toes and stretching his arms. On the right, Donkey Kong clambered up and began flexing his huge muscles.

Surrounding the stage was a holographic box. This box was invisible for the most part, except for when champions approached it. The closer a champion got, the more visible that section of the box became. If a champion touched the box, their opponent got a point. The first to three points won the set. The first to win four sets out of seven won the game. Given the box boundaries extended a great deal past the size of the stage, throwing your opponent outside of it required either launching them a considerable distance, or throwing them so far from the edge that they are unable to return to the stage.

The crowd welled up as a countdown started on the screen began.

"THREE!"

"TWO!"

"ONE!"

"GO!"

Mario and Donkey Kong launched at each other. Mario attempted to land the first hit, but DK dodged it and walloped him backwards. DK attempted to follow up with another hit, but Mario landed in control and swung his feet around, tripping DK up. Mario then proceeded to land a series of upward striking hits on DK, hitting him up to one of the platforms, then continuing into the air. After three straight hits, while in midair, Mario suddenly launched straight upwards and hit DK well into the air, nearly reaching the top of the boundary.

While it just looked like a simple stage with a holographic box, there was a lot packed into the field in front of them. Champions could perform midair hops as if they were pushing off the air itself, but the system's programming only allowed them to do this once before touching the ground again. It allowed for a great deal of vertical movement to occur in fights.

Donkey Kong managed to pull himself away from the boundary just in time. He shot straight down, attempting to smash Mario in the process. Mario managed to roll backwards away from the attack as it hit the ground.

"Aw man," said Bowser, clapping his hands and slouching back. "Thought for sure that would've hit."

Donkey Kong sent a whirl of fists at Mario, constantly peppering him with huge blows. Eventually one found its way past Mario and hit him square in the jaw. It was Mario's turn to fly backwards this time. DK attempted to pursue, but Mario again regained his footing and grabbed DK mid sprint. With a tremendous heave, Mario launched DK off the left side of the stage. DK expended his midair jump in a furious attempt to get back to the stage, but Mario had followed him off the stage and landed a ferocious punch that sent DK downwards and out of the box.

The crowd erupted once more as Mario used his midair jump to get back onto the stage. A small platform had picked DK up and began transporting him back to the stage. At the same time, a medical device was mending his wounds. This was another marvel of the stage. Each time an opponent was knocked out, they came back with all their wounds healed, so their opponent who just knocked them out now had to play at a disadvantage against a now refreshed champion. This was to prevent runaway matches where someone would get far too beat up at the beginning and just keep giving up points in an impossible fight.

The platform reached the center of the stage, hovering above the topmost platform. DK jumped off it with a vengeance. He ran down Mario again, peppering him with more punches. When one found their way through again, Mario was unable to regain his footing. DK followed with a full body slam into Mario, sending him off the stage. Unlike Mario, though, DK waited as the plumber used his midair jump and other abilities to barely reach the ledge. Upon grabbing it, DK attempted to smash him off of it, but Mario dodged it and rolled right past DK. DK was ready, though, and grabbed Mario and chucked him off the edge. This time Mario went so far that he hit the side boundary.

"It's so much more intense seeing it in person," said Leaf to Zelda. Mario had returned to the stage and began fighting again in earnest.

"Hm?" said Zelda. She had been half watching the game, half looking at her phone. "Oh, yeah, it's a lot more interesting in person. You can see a lot more from here than a TV camera."

Leaf smiled, "You don't seem to interested though."

Zelda simply waved her hand. "These guys are so evenly matched. It'll start getting interesting once we actually get near the end."

The crowd, meanwhile, seemed to find the entire fight very interesting. Every hit that connected was met with an "ooh!", and every desperate recovery back to the stage was given an "aah!". And of course, every time one of the two was brutally smashed off stage, they cheered raucously.

"You must be Leaf?"

Leaf turned around and was met with a middle-aged woman in a business suit.

"Uh, yeah, that's me," Leaf said. She was unsure who this person was, but they looked important.

"That's Catharine Barr," said Zelda. "She's one of the board members."

"Oh!" said Leaf, jumping out of her chair. "Uh, nice to meet you!" she shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you as well," said Catharine. "No need to be too formal here though, it is a sporting event. Hope you have fun and good luck!" she said with a wink. She walked off smoothly to see the other newcomers.

Leaf sat back down.

"Um," she said, turning to Zelda, "is it normal for board members to talk to us a lot? I'm not overly great with being super formal and such."

"Not really," said Zelda. "I mean, imagine someone like that having a conversation with Cap. Hand usually is the intermediary between us and them."

"Oh, I see," said Leaf, looking back at the battle. Mario had just won the first via a heavy, fiery hit that sent Donkey Kong out the side of the box. Bowser growled and pounded his fist on his armrest.

"Although," said Zelda. This time she was speaking in a low, soft voice, "if someone hasn't told you already, it's important to know that they aren't your boss, Hand is. They might be Hand's boss, but Hand is the only person who should be taking orders from them."  
"What do you mean," Leaf said back softly.

"It's just mostly corporate stuff you should be aware of. We usually haven't had an issue with it before, but the last thing you want is for someone to take advantage of you."

Leaf nodded.

Mario had taken an early lead in the second match, but DK had begun to figure him out. In a furious comeback, DK scored two points in a row and took the second match. Leaf applauded excitedly. Some of the other members were also cheering, and Bowser was roaring and hitting his fist on the arm rest again.

"You're going to break it!" said Palutena indigently as the arm rest strained under each blow.

"It'll be fine," said Bowser, not looking away from the stage.

"You put money on this game, didn't you," said Zelda, still not looking from her phone.

"So, what if I did?" said Bowser. "Nothing wrong with legal sports betting."

Zelda smirked.

Down below the box, below the stands, the stage, and the ground, there were rooms where champions got ready for their match. Fox and Link were both staring at a screen, waiting for their fights to begin.

"Man," said Link. "I haven't seen Mario get schooled like that in some time. DK hardly got hit at the end there."

Fox was doing some light jump rope exercises to stay warm. "I think Mario pushed too far. Landed some big hits in the first match then tried to push his lead with the aggression. Ended up backfiring. Surprised DK was that patient."

Samus was behind the two of them, stretching her arms. She was also watching the fight unfold.

"This'll probably go to six or seven rounds at this rate," she said. "They're both really good at coming back from being down. I'd be surprised if any of their matches were decided by more than a point."

Link turned around and looked at Samus. "Are you going armor or no armor against Yoshi?"

"None," she said. "I'd prefer the speed for this fight. It's not like Yoshi has a ton of super hard hitting moves as it is."

In the equipment room, Samus had a full set of body armor from her bounty hunting days. When she had first became a champion, she only fought with the armor, as it had been her sole mode of combat for years. Over time though, she found she could ditch the armor and use a different style of fighting to take on smaller or faster opponents. It had become a matter of fighting preference whether she used the armor in fights or not.

Far above, past the box and into the announcer's box, Kaitlin Panther stood nearby the eccentric play-by-play man who was speaking to everyone watching the game from abroad.

"Oh! Mario gets a clean hit on DK, he's sent back to the right of the stage again but lands smoothly, ready to block the follow up hit. Mario attempts to grab him but he's parried away, and DK shoves him back away. Now Mario attempts an attack from the air, but DK gets out of the way and lands a hit from behind!"

"Mrs. Panther?" said someone from right behind her.

"Yes?" she turned around. One of the tech guys was poking his head through the door.

"Production head sent me. He said you're going to want to look at this."

"At what?" said Kaitlin, putting her pad under her arm and following him out the door. The next room over was a large broadcast room, with loads of workers managing camera feeds and other production settings.

She was taken to one of the stations in the middle of the room, presumably where this man had been working there. Standing next to it was the production manager.

"What is it, Tom?" she asked.

"Right here," he said, pointing at the screen in front of them.

"What's this?" she said, sitting down at the computer.

"That's the viewership ratings tracker. It's not a hundred percent accurate, but it's usually close enough to get a general trend. We'll have far more precise numbers later."

Kaitlin scrolled in and out of the graph, watching the little line move up and down as time went on.

"This is the viewership from the pregame show? It seems fairly low," she said.

"No ma'am. That's the viewership from three minutes ago."

Kaitlin froze. For a moment she continued to stare at the little line, then she got up and turned to the tech guy.

"When this match ends, triple check these numbers and give me the viewer statistics for this match. I want to know everything," she said.

"Yes ma'am."


	7. Ratings

**Note: There's a segment in here about flaming alcoholic drinks. Do not attempt to drink alcohol that's on fire. You will hurt yourself.**

Adjacent to the stadium was a large bar, and every night after fights it was filled to the brim with spectators partying the night away. Because of how close it was to the complex where all the champions lived, there were frequent appearances by famous members. Thousands of fans would spill into the place after the day's events were over to have fun and hope to meet someone famous.

Above this place was a smaller, private bar. This one was reserved for champions, board members, Hand, and special guests. It provided a much cozier atmosphere compared to anywhere else. It also had covered entrances and exits facing towards the complex, giving champions a discreet way of entering and leaving the place away from the crowds.

No champions would be staying for long at the bars tonight, though. Captain Falcon had made it explicit that the champions would be having their own party in the dining hall of the main complex to celebrate their first day back in competition. Therefore, the dance floor downstairs would only be occupied by spectators tonight.

However, Fox had not joined the festivities yet. He still hadn't left the private bar back near the stadium since he arrived after his fight against Pikachu. After taking an early one game lead over the small electric rat, the proceeded to be crushed in three straight sets and lost the match. He bowed out of the stadium for the bar and hadn't moved from his spot since.

The exponential increase in the noise below told him that the day's events were over and people had made their way to the bar to start a night of drinking. Fox knew this also meant the party back at the dining hall would start soon, if it hadn't already. He looked down at his half empty mug of beer, which had been refilled a couple of times already.

"So, are you going to keep moping around all night or are you going to go out and have some fun, at least?" said Tapper, the brown haired, mustached bartender. With the room being empty, he was leaning against the bar table staring down it towards Fox. Tapper solely worked the private bar himself, separate from everyone else that worked downstairs.

Fox gripped the mug, and then began lightly banging it against the table.

"So. Many. Thunderbolts," he said, exasperated.

"Don't dent my table, now," said Tapper.

The door opened behind them. No one had been by since Ganondorf and Ridley had passed by about an hour or so ago, most likely because Samus was in the last fight of the day.

"Get 'em next time," Ganondorf had said, patting Fox rather roughly. Ridley hadn't even looked at him.

This time, the person who entered was at least a foot and a half shorter than Ganondorf, and much less foreboding with his looks. An older man with a full set of thick, white hair walked in and approached the bar table, taking a seat two away from Fox.

"Evening, Tapper," he said to the bartender, who responded in kind and handed him a drink as soon as he reached the table. "Nice to see you, Fox. How've you been?"

"Lately debating if I should've become a writer like you, Scrib, rather than a pilot," Fox replied.

"Oh, I see," Scrib said, laughing. "Did Pikachu really take that much out of you? It didn't look _that_ bad from my point of view, you know. Well, it's never too late to become a story teller!"

Fox groaned and drained the rest of his mug. Truth be told, it really hadn't been that bad of a loss, but it felt like a crushing defeat nonetheless. As one of the Big Eight, Fox had a bit of a reputation to maintain as being one of the best and most seasoned fighters out there. Being comfortably beaten by another one of that group was humbling to say the least.

"Hey now, the crowd still loved it, didn't they?" continued Scrib. "I mean, sure it may not have been your day, but at least they had fun, right?"

Fox shrugged. "They love every fight, regardless if it's a blowout or a nail biter. When the score starts getting lopsided, they want one of two things, either for the blowout to be complete, or for a massive comeback to happen. It's more of a personal disappointment than anything."

Scrib nodded knowingly.

"Anyways," said Fox, "how's the next book coming along?"

"Oh, I've been having a lot of fun with it. I'm hoping to have it out some time early this winter."

"Never understood how you got such a kick out of the writing part," said Fox shaking his head.

"Well, you've never been much of a book worm," said Scrib, "no offense, of course. Your specialties are far more entertaining to watch compared to someone writing."

Fox raised his hand. "None taken. Just don't take any offense yourself when I never read any of your books, no matter how much they're praised."

Scrib laughed again. "Hey, as long as Hand continues to let me in here to have a private drink with my favorite stars, I won't complain about anything. Even so, I do recommend you at least give them a try."

"I'm sure your writing is fantastic," said Fox, "but I don't know if I'd be able to make it through any novel."

"Hate to butt in," said Tapper, "but Fox, aren't you guys throwing a party down at the complex? Overheard some of the others mention it as they passed by earlier today. Wouldn't want you to miss it."

"True," said Fox, looking at the clock. "I'll be disappointed If Cap hasn't smashed the dining room to pieces already. Guess I should head back. Nice to see ya, Scrib." He waved goodbye to the famed author.

Just out the back exit, which faced the complex and away from the stadium entrance, Fox ran into someone almost immediately in the dark.

"What the-? Kaitlin?" said Fox suddenly.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you like that." The panther looking lady from the media day had been waiting just outside the door.

"You weren't waiting for too long out here, were you?" said Fox.

"No, no," she replied, waving his concerns away. "Right after everyone started heading to the bar, I figured I would try and catch you before you left. Hand mentioned you had gone this way. Mind if I walk back with you?"

"Sure," said Fox, making his way towards the complex. "Need something?"

"Well," said Kaitlin, walking briskly on his right, "there was something that came up today during the matches that I thought you should be aware of. Strictly speaking, this is business information right now, but Hand knows about it already and I thought as one of the Big Eight you ought to know as well."

"You know none of us are good at the whole business side of things," said Fox uncertainly. "That's all left to Hand for a good reason."

"You don't need to be a master businessman to understand this," Kaitlin said knowingly. She pulled out some of the papers from the leather pad she had and offered them to Fox.

"So, what am I looking at here?" Fox said, looking at the graphs drawn on the papers.

"The blue bar is the raw total number of viewers you guys pulled in the last time you had a big opening event. That was some years ago. Obviously, biggest event of the day, even the month. That's pretty expected of you guys."

"And the red?" asked Fox, a little apprehensive as he could already guess the answer.

"It's not final, those numbers won't be out until tomorrow when they're made public, but that's the estimated viewership for today's event."

Fox looked down at the little red bar. It was barely two thirds of the blue one.

"Well that doesn't look good," said Fox. "What're all these other ones?" he asked, rifling through the papers.

"Just extra research trying to figure out exactly what was causing such a huge drop. It didn't matter what demographic we looked at; it was a consistent thirty percent drop across the board."

Fox handed the papers back. "You said Hand knows, right? I can't image there's anyone but him that could deal with that."

Kaitlin didn't look thoroughly convinced.

"That's just one day though, right?" said Fox. "I mean, it's not like this is a consistent trend. Maybe there was just something off about today?"

"I wish it were," said Kaitlin, "but I'm not totally sure it's not already."

"What do you mean?"

Kaitlin stopped walking and turned to face Fox. "You know how Hand got all those champions to come back? Everyone that had ever been in any previous competition along with a few new faces as well. I'm not completely certain, but I've heard rumors from some fairly solid sources that he brought all those people in almost as a kind of PR stunt. A way to jack up interest for the competition because there had already been some growing problems. That's an expensive PR stunt, and I'm not sure if it paid off at all. If that's true, Hand will be in some hot wate-"

"It'll be fine," Fox cut her off calmly. There was a pause in which only the distant noise from the bar and the now very clear roar from the complex were heard. Kaitlin folded her arms.

"Hand has been running this ship for ages now," he continued. "I'm confident he can find a solution if it gets to be too big of a problem."

Kaitlin stared back at Fox, still unconvinced. "You have a lot of faith in him, don't you?" she said.

"The guy has pulled his fair share of miracles in the past," said Fox. "This isn't anything but another obstacle for him to clear." With that, he left Kaitlin and headed into the complex.

* * *

The dining room was on fire. At least, the area immediately round one of the tables was. Cap and Incineroar had gotten so excessive with the lighting of their shots that they had overdid it with Incineroar's fire and set the wooden table ablaze.

The small water turtle Pokémon, Squirtle, jumped into action, blasting the surrounding area with a jet of water and stamping out the flames.

"Good going, little guy," said Cap with a smile and a thumbs up for the little Pokémon. Squirtle seemed entertained, but Peach wasn't.

"_What_ are you doing?" she shouted at the pair of them. Despite the deafening music being played, her voice was clearly audible above it. The Mushroom Kingdom princess was stomping her way over to the smoldering table. Squirtle turned tail and bolted out of the way of her footsteps.

"Oh c'mon, Peach," said Cap, still smiling. "Nothing hurt, just a bit of a mishap with the fire."

"The entire table is burned black!" she shouted back.

Two tables down, Link and Rosalina were joined by Fox.

"Surprised to see the place still standing," remarked Fox. Every champion was in the dining hall partying. Some of the tables had been cleared out of the way for a dance floor, and there were huge amplifiers where Hand had given his speech at the end of last week. The sound was lightly shaking the tables and all the alcohol on them.

"Well, Cap did manage to set a table on fire," said Link, pointing at the smoking table and Cap, who was slowly starting to cower under Peach's increasing rage. Squirtle was staring blankly at the pair of them, and Incineroar looked apprehensive realizing how much fury Peach was capable of generating.

"Shame I missed that," said Fox. He had half a mind to inform Link about what he had heard from Kaitlin, but given the slightly tipsy nature of both Link and Rosalina and the fun everyone was having, he didn't want to put a damper on the mood. Besides, he was confident Hand would have an appropriate response by tomorrow.

At another table, Zelda and Palutena were sitting across from Lucina, Marth, and Chrom.

"Barbarians," muttered Marth, staring at Cap and sipping on his wine with dignity.

"Are they usually like this?" asked Chrom, eyeing the smoking table. "They seem to have no end to their energy."

"Pretty much," said Zelda apathetically. "Surprised they hasn't wrecked half the room by now. With Incineroar now the amount of fires they start is going to quadruple. These were the guys that loaded poor Pichu up on energy drinks and sent him flying off the walls until the thing blasted itself unconscious with an electric charge."

Lucina giggled. Her face was quite red. "That does sound pretty funny. _Hic_."

Marth eyed Lucina over his wine glass. "Perhaps _you've_ already had too much as well."

"Oh, leave her alone," said Palutena, who was also turning red. "It's not like we do this every night like those four do."

Back at the smoldering table, Peach had finished her berating of Cap and Incineroar and had left them.

"Alright bud," said Cap, rubbing his hands together and looking at the shots. "Let's try this again, but, uh, maybe a little less flame."

A few seconds later, they had a nice blue flame inside each shot glass.

"My only question is why," said Zelda. "I mean, I guess Incineroar looks like he could handle anything heat related, even throwing fire in his face, but Cap doesn't have any special fire resistence."

Incineroar picked up the shot glass like any other glass, but Cap was using a straw instead.

"One. Two. Three!"

Cap put the straw in and drained the shot glass. Incineroar merely put the glass to his lips and took it like a normal shot.

"Idiots," muttered Marth as Cap high fived Incineroar.

"Actually, that reminds me," said Zelda, standing up. Lucina's eyes lazily followed her. Zelda, however, was still in complete control.

"What is it?" asked Palutena.

"I meant to ask Hand if we could do something about those guys causing a ruckus throughout the night all the time. Sound proof their room or something. He should be in his office right now wrapping things up."

Zelda finished off her drink and smacked it on the table. "Be right back," she said with a smile.

As she left the dining hall, she heard Peach berating Cap and Incineroar again. "You don't need to set any more of those on fire!" Zelda laughed quietly to herself. As annoying as they could be, Cap never meant anyone harm. He was actually one of the gentler champions when it came to caring for others.

Zelda was correct in her assumption that Hand would be in his office. He could hear him talking to someone on the phone. Feeling that she should knock first instead of barging into the room in the middle of his call, she raised her fist to the door.

"Catherine, you have to trust me on this. This isn't the first difficulty we've faced...yes, I know it looks dire, but you know I can figure this out."

Zelda froze, her hand an inch from the door. She stared straight into the wood, wondering what was happening on the other side. Hand's voice seemed measured, but there was an obvious amount of stress in it.

"Look," continued Hand, "I'm sure we can consider some other options first. Wouldn't doing something like that been seen as desperate? It's a bit extreme in my opinion...No, I'm not saying it wouldn't help, but there are other options we can explore first."

Zelda was unsure whether she should be listening in on this. Despite being a business matter, it seemed rather private. She debated if she should leave and come back in a few minutes, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. What could possibly have Hand feeling so stressed? They had just had what seemed like a very successful first day of events after all.

"I understand, but I think we should leave this until the next meeting. After all, the numbers don't even come out until tomorrow. Taking measures now might be a bit premature...yes of course...good night."

Zelda heard Hand hang up the phone and put it back down on the table. She gave it a few seconds, then knocked softly on the door.

"Um, yes, come in," said Hand distractedly. Zelda opened the door slowly.

"Oh, hello, Zelda." said Hand, looking up from his table. "How are you?" There were a handful of papers with charts featuring red and blue bars on them. Hand hastily stuffed them into a folder.

"Doing well," said Zelda apprehensively. "Are you though? I couldn't help but overhear..." Even without hearing the conversation, it would have been obvious that something was wrong with Hand.

"Ah, you heard that?" said Hand, scratching the back of his head nervously. "Well, just a bit of a rut. Nothing I can't dig out of though."

Zelda eyed Hand. Her original purpose for being here had been driven from her mind. Despite Hand's response, he seemed genuinely concerned about something.

"Doesn't seem like a small deal," she pressed.

Hand sighed and slumped into his chair, rubbing his face. Zelda wasn't comfortable seeing him so distressed. Hand was always the confident, put together person that kept everything running smoothly.

"You're right," he said, his hands covering his face. "It's actually something that's been building for a while. I just haven't been able to find a solution to it."

"You want to talk about it?" said Zelda slowly. Despite technically being their boss, those who had been around the complex for a long time treated Hand like family as if he were any other champion. He was their foundational pillar, the one who had brought them together all those years ago and introduced them to so many new people. For many he was the symbol of stability within their business.

Hand paused, staring at the table. "Sure," he said, "but shut the door behind you. This isn't exactly something I want to burden anyone else with yet."

Zelda entered and closed the door behind her. She took a seat in one of the chairs facing Hand, folded her legs, crossed her arms, and looked at him expectantly.

"I will say that I'm comfortable telling you this because I consider you to be as experienced and capable as any of the Big Eight," he started seriously.

"Uh, thanks," said Zelda, blushing lightly.

"I planned on informing them of this tomorrow, and by the end of the week I suspect everyone will have some idea of what's going on. I don't want rumor or wild speculation to take hold, but I don't wish to start a panic either."

"And what is that?"

Hand clasped his fingers together tightly, still looking down at the table. "We've...been having some issues lately with our ratings. We're just not pulling in the numbers like we used to."

Zelda raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" she said. Ratings records were something they were usually obliterating each year. Granted, she hadn't heard any new records being made for some time, but she figured it was because the previous ones had been set so high by them that they were nearly unobtainable.

Hand nodded. "And it's not just that they're lower," he continued. "They're dropping at a steady rate. I just haven't been able to figure out why, but we've been pulling in consistently less and less people. The opening matches today compared to the last opener was a thirty percent drop."

"You're kidding," said Zelda. She wasn't any master of business, but a drop of nearly a third seemed way too large.

"I'm not," said Hand. He pulled the papers back out of the folder and handed them to her. Sure enough, when she looked at them it was clear that there was a huge drop between the last opener and this one.

"I don't have the other numbers on me right now, but this drop has been a steady trend for quite some time. If this continues, in a few months we're going to start seeing some real financial trouble."

"And what will that mean?" asked Zelda, handing the papers back to Hand.

"Well," said Hand, "some of the board is already getting jumpy. They're trying to push for budget cuts in some areas. The big one..."

Hand sighed deeply.

"The big one being we start cutting champions."

Zelda's jaw dropped slightly. Cutting champions? Not even a week into the new competition and the board was already trying to cut members?

"Wh...but that's not fair!" said Zelda. She was wrestling with the idea of champions having to leave just after getting here. They had just gotten past this stressful moment a few days ago. Now it was back in full force.

"It's not, and frankly I believe it's a bit of an overreaction for now," said Hand. "Outright cutting champions this soon would be seen as panicky by the media. That would just hurt our image more in my opinion."

"For now, you said?" asked Zelda apprehensively.

"Well, for now it would be an overreaction. Like I said, though, if this trend continues, by the time we reach mid-autumn we might not have a choice. Housing champions is the most expensive part of our budget. Reducing our numbers would provide the most relief."

Zelda sat in her chair motionless. She was frustrated, but she didn't know what she should be frustrated at. Hand was doing all he could to protect people, the board was obviously trying to make sure the entire operation didn't capsize. Why wasn't there a solution?

"How many would you cut?" she asked.

Hand shrugged. "About seventy-five percent, maybe? That would cover our losses and give us a way to bounce back over time once we figured out the situation."

"Three fourths?" said Zelda incredulously.

"By mid-autumn, yes," said Hand. "As I said, some members wanted to cut some already. They weren't overly impressed by my idea of getting everyone to come back, but I had convinced them it would help with the situation. Turns out I may have been wrong."

Zelda gripped her chair tightly. Her frustration of the matter was already growing. She hadn't any better idea than Hand had of why their ratings were falling, but she felt like something had to be done.

"So, what're we going to do?" she said.

"What do you mean?" asked Hand.

"What're we going to do to fix this?" she said, trying to inject some urgency into the conversation.

Hand blinked. "What do you mean _we_?"

"Us!" said Zelda. "You! Me! All the others! What're we going to do to make sure we don't lose everyone?"

"It's really not your job-" started Hand, but Zelda cut him off.

"It is now!" she said. "It was yours to begin with, but clearly you're going to need some help! Anyways, I'd say this greatly involves the rest of us now that you're saying we might be cutting three out of every four people!"

Hand stared blankly at Zelda. He clearly had not anticipated this being her reaction.

Zelda stood up and put her hands on his desk, staring at him. "Let me help you. I might not be able to solve this for you, but I can at least help you buy some time. Is there anything we can do to at least slow down the problem?"

"Well, um," said Hand uncertainly. "We might be able to do some events outside the stadium. Some public engagement to get people interested, but I don't think-"

"Then that's what we'll do," said Zelda. "It might not fix the issue, but it'll at least delay it so that we're not getting wiped out come autumn. It might be able to buy you the time we need to figure this out."

"Well, I guess we can get started on that then," said Hand, not overly convinced still. "I have to meet with the board on Wednesday. If we can come up with something then it should at least calm down those who already want to start cutting champions. Then I can focus on the big problem."

And with that, they spent the next two hours brainstorming. They came up with ideas for events, appearances by champions in public, special events in the stadium, anything they thought would help stall what seemed like the inevitable.


	8. Zelda's Plan

Leaf stamped her foot on the ground in frustration. She wasn't used to this.

"It's okay," said Lucina, somewhat exasperated with how much Leaf was getting angry with herself.

The two of them were at the training grounds. It was a large open area between the complex and the stadium that held many makeshift fields to practice fighting on. Each field had the same technology present on it, from the aerial jumps to the boundaries to the medical drones. However, they were completely flat, and you couldn't fall under the stage like in the stadium. Still, it was enough for them to practice.

To substitute for not having floating stages, a gigantic fifty-foot wall had been built at the training grounds, strictly made for champions to practice trying to get back to a stage they had been knocked off from. There were ledges cut into the wall every ten feet for various forms of recovery practice.

There were also a number of challenging obstacles, each which had different uses and applications champions could use to train themselves. High ropes, balance beams, and a track were present in the area.

Including the gym, which was the sole building in the area, this was where the majority of the "workday" was spent for the champions. Getting better as fighters by working out and sparring with each other.

For Leaf, however, this "getting better" was coming in the form of defeat after defeat at the hands of Lucina. Countless times in a row Lucina had knocked her beloved Pokémon out of the artificial boundaries and into the dust.

"Just keep trying," said Lucina. "You're only going to get better, I'm sure."

Leaf sighed. Lucina could tell there was hardly any confidence within her. Going easy wasn't an option, though, because then she'd probably feel patronized. She watched Leaf send out a Pokémon to fight her once again and raised her sword.

Lucina stared down the edge of her blade at her opponent, panting. The summer sun was beating down on her. She wiped the sweat from her brow with her free hand, not breaking eye contact.

"Ready?" she called.

Facing her was a smiling Squirtle. The little Pokémon looked up at the blade being pointed at it.

"Yeah," said Leaf.

"Alright," said Lucina. She launched at Squirtle, moving swiftly between each slash of her sword, trying to land a hit on the little water turtle. Squirtle moved deftly from side to side, dodging the flurry of attacks.

"Withdraw!" called Leaf. Squirtle ducked under one last swing from Lucina's sword and retracted in its shell. Lucina hardly had a moment to react as the shell suddenly launched itself at her. She jumped over it and it flew along the ground underneath her. By the time she had landed, Squirtle had already popped back out and turned around.

"Water gun!" said Leaf.

Lucina braced herself as a powerful jet of water smashed into her. She slid several feet backward in the dust but managed to hold her footing. Had she been caught off guard, it probably would have thrown her on her back.

_Gross_, thought Lucina. In a few minutes, she was about to become a hot sticky mess now that she was properly drenched.

She hardly had enough time to wipe the water from her eyes when a completely new Pokémon was launching itself at her. Leaf had switched Squirtle out for the plant-like Pokémon Ivysaur. Two vicious vines lashed out at her, but she easily sidestepped the attack. With Ivysaur now too overcommitted, she landed a solid kick on it and launched it backward.

Leaf grimaced as Ivysaur shot past her, but it got up quickly. Lucina pursued with more rapid attacks of her sword. Ivysaur parried the swings with vines that waved repeatedly in front of it.

"Razor leaf!"

Lucina felt a sharp leaf cut across her face. This time she was knocked flat on her back, but being one of the faster champions out there, she quickly rebounded onto her feet and-

_WHACK_

A gigantic orange tail with a fire on its tip walloped Lucina right in the gut. She felt the air get knocked out of her, and the force of it lifted her off her feet. She was launched well into the air, and when she landed, she found herself outside of the makeshift boundaries.

In front of her, the dragon looking fire Pokémon, Charizard, roared triumphantly. Leaf must have switched Ivysaur out for Charizard while Lucina was down.

"Nicely done," said Lucina, wincing as she sat up. A medical drone quickly arrived and began healing her wounds.

"Thanks," Leaf said shyly. She didn't look up from the ground as she poked at it with her foot with her hands folded behind her back.

"You don't seem convinced," said Lucina, looking up at her from the ground, now covered in dirt as well as soaking wet. A small puddle had formed underneath her.

"Well, that was the only time I was able to beat you," Leaf said. "And it was kinda lucky, I guess. Charizard just hit you without me telling him to."

"Probably got that from Red," said Lucina, looking up at the large Pokémon with a smirk. "He's a more aggressive type. But hey," she continued, gesturing broadly to her current beat-up state on the ground, "it worked, didn't it?"

"I just wish I felt like I had done it, you know?"

The medical drone left. Lucina stood up and patted the dust off her dripping legs as best as she could. "I think you judge yourself too much," she said. "You beat me that round fair and square. Now let's go shower before I die from this humidity."

Leaf called Charizard back into the Pokeball, and she walked with Lucina towards the gym. She still didn't look very sure of herself. Lucina noticed this and began looking around the training grounds.

"Hey, watch this," said Lucina, pausing to look at the massive recovery wall. It towered above just about everything else in the area aside from the high ropes course.

"What is it?" asked Leaf.

"See Cap over there?" Lucina pointed towards a bare-chested man approaching the wall.

"Of course, he's shirtless," said Leaf flatly. Cap began stretching his legs and arms, staring at the wall.

"Yeah, he's always worked out like that," said Lucina dismissively, "but watch this."

Cap continued stretching for a few more seconds. Falco approached him and began to lightly shove him around some, hyping him up. Eventually, Cap approached the wall, staring up at it.

"He's going to try and reach the twenty-foot ledge in a single jump," said Lucina.

"One jump?" repeated Leaf, alarmed.

Lucina nodded. They watched Cap do a few squats in preparation. Then, in one single motion, he dropped down and mustered all his power into a single hop. As he launched himself off the ground, there was a dust cloud of dry dirt kicked up underneath him in the blazing sun. He thrust his hand towards the clear blue sky, reaching as far as he could as he approached the wall.

His hand landed flatly in the middle between the eighteen- and nineteen-foot markers. A defeated Cap slapped into the side of the wall and slid miserably back down it. He hit the ground and fell flat on his back, eyes closed.

"Ugh…dammit," the two heard him say.

"Oh," said Leaf, "he was so close."

Falco walked over and grabbed Cap's hand, helping him back up. Cap immediately began doing a few more warmup stretches, staring at the same point at the wall twenty feet up.

"He's been trying to grab that twenty-foot ledge in one jump for a year now," said Lucina. "I think the closest I saw him get was when he barely cleared nineteen about a month ago."

Lucina turned away from the wall and began heading to the gym again. Leaf followed, still looking back at Cap as he measured up his second attempt at the wall.

"How high could he jump when he first started?" she asked Lucina.

"Hm," Lucina thought for a moment. "I think I remember him clearing seventeen feet last winter. That's about when he started getting obsessed with trying to reach twenty feet."

"All that time and he's barely gotten one to two feet higher?" Leaf asked incredulously. "Like, I'm not taking away from what he can do already, but that seems like he's hardly gotten much higher, no?"

Lucina looked over her shoulder and saw Cap impale himself in roughly the same spot on the wall. She shrugged and said, "That's Cap's life. When you're as good as he is, it takes a lot of effort and time to make marginal increases. He'll probably fail a thousand times before he reaches his goal. Then he'll move on to something else. Look over there."

Leaf faced where Lucina was pointing and saw Link sparring with Ike. Ike wielded a gigantic golden colored sword that was devastatingly powerful. Link, however, had forgone his shield and was parrying the behemoth directly with his own, smaller sword.

"No shield?" asked Leaf. Link dropped to one knee briefly as Ike dealt a crushing blow on top of him. Link was holding off the impact with only his sword. His shield was lying in the dusty dirt off to the side. Slowly, Link pushed the two-handed sword off of him and stood back up.

"Link's been trying to increase his strength by not letting himself use a shield in training. That way he has to absorb all the power someone like Ike throws at him," said Lucina. She smiled and added, "It also makes things a little fairer for Ike."

"But, doesn't Link use the shield in fights? Wouldn't it make sense for him to practice with what he's going to be using?" asked Leaf.

"Well, he's been using a sword and shield for ages. It's not like he needs the practice that desperately there," said Lucina. "Like I said, though, this at least makes the fight more in favor of Ike. Link is just too good with all his gear."

"AGH!" yelled Link. Ike had pounded him again with his sword and the force proved too much for a battered Link. He went flying through the air. Leaf winced when he crash-landed in the dirt, his sword bouncing away from him with a clang.

"I think," she heard Link mumble from the ground, "that I'm just gonna take a break here for a second."

They arrived at the gym, which was wonderfully air-conditioned. Lucina breathed a sigh of relief as her sticky clothes immediately began to cool down and the water still in them was extremely refreshing on her skin.

"Oh, and those two have been trying to outdo each other on the powerlifting for ages," Lucina continued as she let the refreshing cold air wash over her. She was pointing over to Ganondorf and Bowser. They were spotting each other at the power rack.

"What I'm saying," Lucina continued as they passed the pair, "is that everyone's trying to get better at something. We're not all perfect fighters or perfect in anything else. It takes time to get better. Being new just means you'll get better faster than any of us."

They entered the locker rooms. Despite her clothes now cooling her off rather than being stiflingly hot, she was thankful to get the water and sweat-soaked cloth off her back. She hopped in the shower and began washing her headful of blue hair.

"You know," said Leaf from the shower over the wall, "I meant to talk to Bowser about something over the weekend while he was showing me around."

"What's that?" asked Lucina.

"Just, nerves I think." Leaf paused. "I saw the fights this weekend and I already feel way out of my league, if you know what I mean."

"Well, I think you might be comparing yourself a little unfairly," said Lucina. "Those were the Big Eight. They could thrash most of us anyways. Samus beat me three to zero last time we played, and each match wasn't even close. You're plenty strong from what I've seen."

"You think so?"

"Course I do. Hand doesn't just bring anyone in to be a champion. He must think you're able to hold your own."

Leaf didn't say anything back to this.

"And from I've seen," Lucina continued, "you're more than capable."

A moment later they were out of the shower and each into a fresh set of clothes. They piled their things into their gym bags and left the locker rooms.

In the gym, they ran into Cap, who had just come back from the training grounds. He was covered in sweat and had a lot of dirt on his back. His hands were also quite red, as was his face.

"Get any closer?" asked Lucina as he passed by them.

"Nah," said Cap, pausing to face them. "Still cappin' out just under nineteen. Might be a bit before I can get to nineteen and a half. You guys done for the day?"

"Yeah, we went a handful of rounds together. She knocked me out the last one!"

"Really?" said Cap, impressed. "Nice!"

Leaf winced as a great sweaty hand patted her on her freshly washed hair.

"_Get_ your sweaty hands off her, idiot, we just showered," said Lucina, smacking Cap's arm away. Cap raised his hands in surrender and walked away into the locker rooms.

"See," said Lucina brightly as Leaf wiped her hair with a slight look of disgust, "even Cap is impressed with you, and he's usually too busy boasting about himself to notice anyone else."

"Hmm," said Leaf indeterminately.

Lucina folded her arms and stared for a moment at Leaf. Her mood didn't seem to have changed much since they were outside. She then looked back around the gym.

"Hey, Bowser!" she called.

Bowser and Ganondorf were now leaning against the power rack, talking to each other. Bowser looked towards her.

"What?" he called back.

Lucina waved at him to come over to them. Bowser raised his hands indicating that he didn't understand why they didn't just come to him instead if they wanted to talk. Lucina rolled her eyes and gestured more vigorously for him to come over. Bowser also rolled his eyes and slumped over to them.

"What do you want," he said.

"I want you to help me," said Lucina simply.

"With?"

"Coming up with a plan to help Leaf train," she said, pointing at her.

Bowser looked over to Leaf. Leaf's head popped up from looking at the ground, fully alert.

"Wait, what?" Leaf started. "You don't need to-."

Lucina cut her off. "Leaf wants to get better and I figured you were pretty good at helping newbies out and could work with me on that," she said. Leaf looked at Lucina, puzzled.

"Hm," said Bowser, eyeing Leaf, who was now looking between the two of them as if she were being interrogated. "Yeah, I might be able to do that, but only if she's willing."

"I, uh," stammered Leaf, still confused as to what Lucina had just gotten her into. Bowser raised his eyebrows. "Um, yes," she continued, "I'd like that."

"I can probably start Friday," said Bowser, looking to the ceiling and thinking through his schedule. "Your first fight isn't until the weekend after next, right?" he asked, looking back at her. Leaf nodded. "Alright, that'll give us a solid week to get you started. Then, after we've seen you really fight, we can go from there."

"Uh, thank you," said Leaf, still not sure of what just happened.

"Mmhmm," replied Bowser, heading back to his conversation with Ganondorf.

Leaf turned to Lucina. "Why-?" she started.

"You need someone to help you set some goals so you can gain some confidence," said Lucina, heading back for the gym exit. "Bowser doesn't look the part but he's good with helping newbies out with that kind of thing."

* * *

Out of the gym, past the training grounds, and in front of the complex, Zelda came to a halt with a single heavy stomp of her foot. She put her hands over her head, panting, as sweat ran down her face.

"Damn this heat," she gasped. She had just gone on a run, and the stifling heat baked her the whole way. She imagined her face was red as a ruby about now. What clothing she did have on was drenched with sweat caused by the humidity.

While she'd like nothing more than to run into the kitchen, stuff her head in the freezer, and proceed to eat all the ice cream in it, she controlled her impulses and ran to the dorms and up to her unit to take a shower.

Bursting into the unit, she almost tripped over Rosalina and Palutena, who were doing yoga.

"Sorry!" they cried as Zelda dove over them and somersaulted to the other side of the room. She hopped up at the end of the roll.

"S'okay," she said a little stunned and her eyes wide. Had she not been looking she probably would've broken Palutena's nose with her foot.

Still moving swiftly, she went to her room and took a shower. When she exited with a fresh set of clothes on and her hair pinned up, she made sure to jump the two yoga girls as she left the unit. She ran two floors down and banged on the door of another unit.

"Hello?" a voice Zelda didn't recognize said gruffly.

"It's Zelda," she called back.

The door swung open. A muscular man with long dirty blond hair looked down at her from the doorway.

"Hi, uh, Simon, right?" said Zelda uncertainly. Simon nodded back. "Is Marth here?" Simon nodded again and stepped aside to let her in.

Marth was sitting on the couch reading a book. He was wearing a white, short-sleeve button-up shirt and a rather nice pair of khakis. He didn't have any shoes on and looked quite relaxed with one leg folded up on the other. The room around was also quite neat. For a unit of four boys, she thought, it was in pretty clean condition.

"Hello, Zelda," he said when she entered the room. "Did you need me?"

"Yeah, uh, I was actually wanting to ask for your help on a big project," she said. Marth raised an eyebrow.

"A project?" he asked. "Of what kind?"

"Something Hand and I came up with," she said. "Well, actually we came up with a handful of things. There are some ideas we want to try out and I think that you'd be the best at helping us out with them."

Marth closed his book and placed it on the table. "And what would that be?"

"Well," started Zelda. "First, we wanted to start doing pre- and post-fight interviews. We'll need someone to handle the logistics of all of that and figured you'd be the best person. You'd need to organize a schedule around the fights and make sure people are getting from their interviews to their fights and back to their post-game interviews."

Marth folded his arms and looked down for a moment, thinking. His face was quite neutral, and Zelda was having a hard time reading him at all.

"You said Mr. Hand wanted to do this?" he asked.

"Yes," said Zelda, "but don't feel like you have-."

"If Mr. Hand wants it done then, of course, I'll help," he said. "I'm not sure what has been going on, but he seems to be quite uneasy as of late. I'd be happy to assist him. Just so long as I don't have to be in any of it…" he trailed off.

Zelda eyed him suspiciously. "You _do_ know you'll also have to do your own interviews, right?"

Marth paused; his expression still unchanging as Zelda's stare burned into his eyes.

"Fine," he said finally, "but only because I'm helping out Mr. Hand. You know how much I dislike talking to the press…"

"Yes, I know, but you'll only have to do it whenever you have fights. Most of the time you'll be backstage getting everyone where they need to be."

"Where do you plan on doing these?" asked Marth. "We don't exactly have a conference room. Whenever we have events in the press, we usually set up chairs and stages outside and hope the weather is well. I don't expect we'll have that kind of luxury if we're going to be holding these multiple times per week."

"Yeah, that was something we were going over as well," said Zelda. "I was going to talk to Isabelle about it. I mean, after the craziness she pulled with redesigning the dorms so quickly, something like this couldn't be too difficult."

Marth stood up and began pacing. This was what Zelda was hoping for. Whenever Marth began to pace, that was when the gears in his head were really turning and she could expect some good ideas.

"I'd advise you build it within the stadium," he said, still pacing and not looking at her. "The infrastructure is already there, and it'll be easier on everyone's schedules if the interviews are right next to where they'll need to be in a short time. That way we don't have to be too worried about time constraints or being late."

"That's a great idea!" said Zelda. "I'm sure Isabelle would have no problem getting that set up then."

"You'll also need to alert the press of these things," said Marth. "They'll need ample time to prepare for these things, and the next fight is only a few days away."

Zelda's eyes narrowed. "Hmmm."

* * *

"Whoa! Hey! Chill!"

Fox had nearly fallen out of his chair. He had been enjoying his dinner with Link when Zelda had slammed both her hands on the table next to him, tossing his bowl of food into the air.

"Can I help you?" he asked in an aggravated tone.

"Who's that reporter you were flirting with at the media day last week?" she asked quickly and directly.

Link inhaled some of his water. Zelda pounded him with her fist on his back as he coughed, not breaking eye contact with Fox. Fox looked at her in disbelief as she mauled a choking Link.

"We were not _flirting_," he said defensively. "What are you on about?"

"Little aggressive today, aren't we?" Link gasped. Zelda hit him even harder on the back, making him wince.

"Right where Ike's sword got me," he whimpered.

"What has gotten into you?" said Fox, recoiling from her. "Man, you need to calm down-," he flinched as Zelda was now holding a fireball over Link's head.

"Why am I the one getting beat up over this?" he cried. "What is happening? Just let me eat my food, dammit!"

"Kaitlin!" said Fox as Zelda's stare burned into his soul. "Kaitlin, she works at that big news company in the city! Sheesh!"

Zelda straightened up, dispelled the fireball, and smiled. "Thanks!"

Fox stared at her incredulously as she walked gracefully from the dining hall towards Hand's office.

"What the hell…?" he said, staring at the point where she had disappeared.

"That was like being interrogated by Samus," said Link. "What's got her all fired up?"


End file.
